



'-■■■'■■■■ ■' 

*■>■■■• v. 
.•.'■".'■ 



»*$ 







r 





'-»,L 1S ~« 



■ 



b^ 










I 



'EuIm 



A 



■ ,# , 












^1 



















H^HH I w . ./■* 



tides axd Tendencies. 



bl 



o 



Tides and Tendenc :ies 



. >\ 



RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 



BY 

J. L. DUDLEY. 



A'ou quotas quis hoc dixerit, sed quid dicatur attende. 







PHILADELPHIA: 
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

624,6268:628 MARKET STREET. 






*?> 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

II Ai I BLFINGER, 

in the Office Washington. 









jjjdicitiul 



TO 

THE MULTITUDE OF MEN AND WOMEN 

WHO, IN SILENCE AND THRALL, 

ARE HUNGERING FOR MORE 

BOUNTIFUL DAYS. 



PREFACE. 



r I ^IIIS book is made up of Discourses thrown 
off from Sabbath to Sabbath in the ordinary 
course of Pulpit administration, and PJionograpli- 
ically reported for the Secular Press. The concur- 
rent judgment and continuous demand of others, 
commanding the author's entire respect, have caused 
them to be gathered from their fugitive fortunes, 
and presented in a more readable and permanent 
form. 

Literary merit is not their claim. Spoken ex- 
temporaneously before a popular audience, their 
free, somewhat diffuse, and almost conversational 
style is thence explained. 

To every observing mind, Tides and Tendencies of 
Religious Thought, marked and unmistakable as they 
are legitimate and hopeful, constitute a leading 

ix 



PR1 



feature of the times. Such tendencies the present 
to cherish and reflect 

US Preface would be incomplete without ac- 
knowledgment of the kind ofl >f another, to the 
Superintendence of whose practiced eye and hand, 
while the volume was pa through the pr 

are indebted for much of their attrac- 
tiveness. 

J. L. D. 



CO NTH NTS. 



PAGE 

I. SAL VA TI( >N BEFORE CHRIST . , , 



II. THE TWO COVENANTS 

III. THE METHOD OF REVELATION ... 50 

IV. THE ONENESS OE RELIGION AND THE 

RACE ;i 

V. IMITATION AND DEVELOPMENT . . 85 
VI. CHARITY IQ2 

VI I. CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN THOUGHT 112 

VIII. FEAR AND LOVE I3 o 

IX. THE WORTH OE THE SOUL AND ITS AP- 
PRO PR LATE TREATMENT . . . i 4 i 

X. SALVATION— THE OLD AND NEW VIEW 157 

XI. HELP —A SUPPLEMENT, NOT A SUBSTI- 
TUTE i;i 

XII. MANS NATURE DEVELOPED BY TILE 

Q UICKENING PO WER OF G OD' S NA PURE 1 S5 

XIII. A SUFFERING CHRIST IN NORMAL AC- 

CORD WITH NATURE AND REASON . 197 

XIV. DOMINION OF SPIRIT OVER MATTER . 210 

XI 



XII 

PAGE 

XV. Dl — 221 

XVI. DRAWING NIG H UNTO GOD ... 237 

XVII. THE LAMBHOOD OD—AND HOW IT 

TAKI-.s AWA\ 249 

XVIII. (7/. INITY AND HER . . 270 

XIX. /. NAL RIGHTEOUSNESS— THE RE- 

TAME A 

XX. A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE OLD DIS- 

PENSAT VD THE NEW . . . 296 



Tides and Tendencies 

OF 

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 



I. 

XLVATION BEFORE CHRIST. 

There is no other name given und 
wh must be saved* — Acts iv. 12. 

MY subject this morning is enunciated in the fol- 
lowing; proposition, namely: The only religion 
that saves mankind is that which bears the Christian 
name. My text is: "There is no other name given 
under heaven whereby we must be saved." " Tin's 
is the stone which is set at naught by the builders ; 
neither is there salvation by any other." 

Salvation — saved! saved! Deeply reposing in 
the tranquil solitude of every human spirit is the 
dream, nay hope, expectation, of some final state of 
peace, beauty, and perfectness. Musing upon the 
vicissitudes of life and time, conscious of their con- 
flict, of their tears, their ecstasy, aspiration, native 
and instinctive, wedded to hope equally congenital, 
the soul looks across the water, beyond the hills and 
horizons of time, to the far-off bright shore, and there 
expects a landing upon a new world, a beautiful 
world of God ; a world which is to sum up all that 
2 13 



lith takes in as fruition. 
been the dream, the faith of our race; 

all ] and Uayc indicated to 

themselves the t under vari 

Ltals, look ward thus, said there was 

itiful p I this dream- 

The cul- 
ofa bright Elysium, sometimes 

of the I I, as the final home of the 

In Christian symbolism, the very same idea 

paradise of God, the new para- 

, not the old — the spiritual paradise for those 
■ me — under the figure of a city, the 
i t : God, the beautiful city, the city of the great 
King. It is thought ^\ as a new country, new realm, 
i are tl . and principalities, and sceptres, 

and crowns, and honors. In a general sense, Chris- 
tian thinking dm\ Christian faith sum themselves up 
and ultimate in the idea of a I coninion- 

y kingdom, a id, the city of God; 

ne word, h That we may bring this whole 

subject matter of th :t more usefully upon our 
thought, let us aid ourselves at the outset by giving 
ion to three or four particulars. 
H( the Christian idea under the symbolism 

1, the heavenly city, I should 

uk, in th \ that we think of but cm 

entrance into that id we think correctly. There 

but 01 nly one ; and 

with this incC| |i n es of ap- 

t, and from the w 






■5 



and from the north, and from the south, trailing alon 

meet. ml 

all the way between them are countless pathwa; 

wh i point is this very on 

teway, So that from every clime, and kindred, 
and nation, and tongue, from every age, from ev< 
point, these pathways come, terminating, inwardly, 

at the f entrance into the city. 

The second thing I notice particularly, is the fact 
that comers thereto must have some certificate of right 
enter; they must he able to give some unmis- 
takable countersign; must have a key whose skill 
shall fit the ward that makes the lock that gu&r 
the one gateway to the heavenly city. And what is 
that key ? This, exactly and exclusively : the Clirist 
character in the suitor; the Christ character. Not 
only the Christ name, but that which is named, the 
pilgrim must possess. Having that key, he passes 
in, no matter where he got it. No matter whether 
a son of the sun, or a son of the sea; no matter 
whether a native of the forest, or a native of the last 
consummate flower of civilization and culture. Has 
he that key, the Christ character in his character, 
the pearly gate swings and he shares the imvard 
sceptre. 

Notice, in the third place, there can be no substitute 
for this key. There is no substitutional device can- 
onized in heaven or earth, whereby a so-called saint, 
not a saint in character, can pick the lock of heaven. 
No substitute ; no substitute in theory, no substitute 
in creed, no substitute in character. It must be per- 



1 6 TRIST. 

himself; per- 

rth thing to 1 icularly here, 

that all mankind. have had and 

n this matter. There is no 

poor, unfortunate; culprit. d with 

limb, with m of function, with 

i written in sympathetic ink in his nature, 

lash might bring it to I 

bility. God has not c oul in conditions 

n. and then damned it for 

That is what I am trying to say; 

that is the ; liar thing to be noticed here. 

the opportunity of being saved to 

the rod demands that he be saved; and 

I will show you wh; ntly. 

r this test, this sesame, certificate, key — 
in a word, this character by Christ 1 limself, there 

tians out of the matter; 
come, streaming out of the whole of it, 
inferences which the premises necessitate, 
these lei us now especially attend. 

ed b fore Christ came into the 

I hrisr, the only name given under heaven 

by it i> possible to be saved? Were any 

He was named in time, before the 

f Him, before the world heard of Him, 

the 1. . the might\- centuries that 

I thl ' the night of uncertain propheCy? 

Any ■ ? The mighty millions, the billows 

that over the sea, did any of 



TMP0R1 i; 

them dash and sparkle on the bright shore? or did 

>wn to the night-p A fail 

tion, this. We show neither our Christianity nor our 
manliness by blinking it, or telling the inquirer thai 
he may not broach such a question. That is the 
way skeptics art made; and infidels come to 
the scheme of religion offered them in Christ, in- 
voking, as th \ the contempt of their rea 
Don't do it. Ask the question: Were any si 

r to about eighteen hundred years ago? Too 
horrible, indeed, to think of the negative answer; 

terrible an impeachment of the Christian concep- 
tion of the Divine attributes; too violent a logic to 
make any man respectable, or rather leave him 
respectable, even here in the dark short-sighted 
ways of time. 

Again, if any were saved before Christ was heard 
of in this world, how were they saved? But I 
ought to have begun the question a little back of 
that. On the supposition that Christ is the only 
name given under heaven whereby salvation is pos- 
sible, and you are pleased to suppose that some 
were saved before He came into the world — how 
were they saved ? This inquiry throws us back in 
the next place upon the great ante-Christian economy. 
Assuming that men were saved before Christ, and 
that there is no possible salvation but in and through 
Christ, then you have got to have Christ back there 
somehow and some way. And that is what the 
truth is. He was there. 

We are fond of calling Christianity a universal 
2* j; 



i8 

tmpliment oui by whetting 

■ ■ y thai 

and elimin >m human nature but G 

this universality. 
It : autiful problem ; the more \ rk that 

the is a good place to take up the 

thought — the universality of the Christian r 

■ ■ ! heard of Christ, 

r preached to them, before any 
I For that purpose, how did it 
D ? What was tile manner and method then 
Let I 

There w before the canons of poetry. 

re navi before the art of navigation. 

So th< ; • Ihristi re the era of Chris- 

tianity. Back in old Judaism we believe that multi- 

d by the Christ, who was, and 

nil for- 
rand universal Christ- 
en, which underlay all the 
md sh . — which underflows the whole 

We believe th .ived back 

there. Christ himself, after he had come into the 
rid and ich, said: "Search the Scrip- 

for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and 
■ are they which testify of me." Christianity 

Ise Christianity is not 

the only r n that can ( otherwise you are 

dn"\ f that fust horrible 

question, Was it possible for anybody to be saved 
a bund 



19 

me thi 
Phenomena are ever chai , the trail 
of things perishing in their using. 1 tre 

abiding, the same yesterday, to-day, and fore^ 
Phenomena are autumn-leaves fallin 
that which is essence is the primal vitality and 
of the acorn, originally the same in the germ as in 
the first sprouting, and in the trunk and the arms a 
thousand told, throwing themselves out into the 
iches of centuries. There is that which is one, 
unchai le, unbroken, ever the same; and that 

which is changeable, coming, going, passing away. 
Now, is n't it about time to link ourselves with that 
which is permanent and everlasting, and which 
strikes fellowship with every truth in the world, 
rather than go picking up the autumn-leaves that fell 
from last year's growth, and last century's growth, 
trying to get life out of them ? Is n't it better to 
stipulate for the heaven of prophecy, the victorious 
Eden at the other end, than go back and pick from 
the withered flowers of the primal Eden the seed 
of our hope? Think of it. If, now, you and I shall 
find ourselves able to stand up and show that Chris- 
tianity has a right to this claim of universality, our 
ability to do so will lie along the fellowship of these 
universal principles which I have indicated. Our 
prayers must ring with the significance thereof; our 
sermons must be loaded with the power thereof; and 
our Christian characters, day by day, must show 
that their roots find nurture just here. It is time 
that Christianity be handled under methods of 



20 '.' ' (7/ AY. 

ight tl: truly tpolitan, 1 in not 

Id, but the world which is to come It 

is high time that we into these prov- 

which G at our 

Having thus spoken, by the light of our thought 
we find oui ntly namin rist backward 

rd He is the might}' memorial of 
our rac hope. Along the track of the 

Christ-scheme, on that scheme of religion which He 
.11 human history. Along the bright 
l ahead lies all human hope, all human prophecy, 
lith finds herself able to take up the univer- 
sality of Christianity and to hold it. Faith now 

he may not comprehend by her 
con< cactly — that is not her business. Rea- 

. but faith finds herself challenged 
to her utmost line is , ndeur of function; here 

she wings h< to God himself, nothing short. 

Faith hath inspiration that does not flag or 
wither. Myster] les pouring into it. Divinity 

in like a life river; the inspiration is as the 
of God in such soul. 
All thin the Christian's. I am the Alpha 

and the Omega, whispers in his faith; a grand de- 
grand race-growth, a sublime unfolding 
of hem I out of God. This is the 

tlvation named by Christ, than which 
I name given under heaven whereby hu- 
ed, 1 lave all men, then, had a 

l n \ i delusiveness or 



CM 2 I 

t of p r< >d ? 1 >id n 

this scheme of salvation begin before time? Isn't 
it throbbing through all time? Will it not last on 
r ond time, this one grand method and power of 

[vation named by the Christ-God ? ( I how broad ! 
how broad ! 

0, suiter at the shining gate, it will not be asked 
what tribe you belonged to on earth ; what nati< 
what kindred, what clime, what people. It will not 

Iced what religion you belonged to — that nev 
will be thought of. It will not be asked whether 
M Puritans or all Papists; whether you are 
Calvinists orArminians* Universalists or Quaker 
Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Swedenborgians, or 
even — Congregationalists. That won't be asked. 
No time for that — no opportunity for such waste of 
heavenly thought. Autumn-leaves, all those; good 
in their season and for their use, but done with now. 
What is the fruit? Have you this key, this char- 
acter? Don't present your substitute; don't present 
your creed; don't borrow anybody's opinions; don't 
get the advantage of anybody's reputation. What 
are you, O soul ? Show your mark — yes, your char- 
acter. 

I am in transport, I confess, at the grand thought 
of this Divine and sympathetic unfolding of God's 
love, wisdom, and power, on our nature and our race! 
Here we are but little germs of being; but little 
ninal potencies unstarted. The transporting 
thought is, that I was created into this sympathetic 
environment of God which spans the ages; whose 



TRIST. 

lu-art, thn hither and thith r. is bounded only 

by the boundary rnity, 1 am blooming a little 

th this all ensphering summer of God, 
g imm< derations 

ch of this Divine sympa- 
thetic provisi And then I am kept on by way 
of transplantation into the upper garden, "where 
walk and phs are the wardens." It is 
I thank God to-day for life, for being. 
The harps we hear of, the palms that shall wave, 
and the crowns that -litter, are only faint and feeble 
symbols of t; music that shall well up 
i within ; of the grand prerogatives that will be 
mine and your- if we answer to the Divine call so 
coming to us ; and all things shall be but a stringed 
rument of that will sir ver and ever 

>:ring touch. I am moved to ecstasy when 

I think of man's nature, thus held in the warm, sym- 

c environment of God ; and am chilled to 

frost at the thought of repelling and rejecting all 

that, and dreaming of it after all opportunities are 

If you would feel the power of Christianity, come 

r n into th rial circulation where the blood 

Rows, coming directly warm from the heart. Don't 

ii]) among the blue veins which have distributed 

r nurture once, and an ick to get a new 

supply. Go down to the universal, perpetual, vital 

f nature and >n, ( I how we belittle 

Christianity by doing anything else! How we be- 
little Ourselves, and shrink and wither by feed 



: I HAVE A 

not upon the substance, not upon the enduring, but 
upon some mere passing phenomena, jome Soatii 
rumors of the ae hundn f men 

five hundred j >, or what somebody 

said or told us of! How we become self-belittled 
thus, and our very thinking chatters with chills and 

rattles like the bones of the dead. Christ IS the 

God named through man. The Christ-power is the 

God-power unto salvation. 

it of Paganism it was also possible for souls to 
be saved. They could be plucked from it as brands 
from the burning. 1 said, in noticing my fourth 
introductory particular, that all mankind have, and 
must have had, a chance for salvation, or the honor 
of God is in question. Pagans, therefore, must have 
had a chance. And moreover, if Revelation in the 
Xew Testament be true after it is made, certainly 
they had ; for Paul tells us that they were without 
excuse, not only for not worshipping God, but for 
not worshipping his eternal power and Godhead. 
Godhead — what is meant by that ? It means the 
Father, means the Son, means the Holy Ghost. 
\v Paganism is nothing but the benighted, feeble 
striving of man's religious nature to get at its 
answer; the native hunger of his humanity striving 
to get bread somehow and somewhere. If it were 
possible for that hunger to become conscious, the 
counterpossibility was, as it is, the bread of life 
available. Don't you know how in the old Prophets 
it reads : " The Desire of all nations." That is the 
theme of one of the grandest courses of the Hulsean 



RE CllRl. 

ibj D an Trench several years ago in 
• 1, — Christ, the D sire of all Nations. Now 
if tl. there subjectively, how are you 

the consistency of Heaven, putting 
it there with no possibility of getting at the true 
object of the d It cannot be done. Mis- 

fill] of testimony that Pagans not u n fre- 
quently h;.- tivelythe Christ state. Now the 
nswer to that was indicated by Paul. 
This Chri* Inch is the God system, or 
the way i tling into us, or the way of 

himself to us, has always been in 

i idential adaptation to the time, condition, 

manner of the race. Yes, it is possible for 

I r God would not hold them 

guilt 

I add that even under the primal condition of na- 
ture is salvation possible. Such teachings have the 
flaming 1: ndered declaring the glory of 

God; such teaching e the lessons of the lilies 

and the flowers of the field rendered. It is possible 
man to 1 under the I of G 

rid. We don't look at this; and because 
: t think it, fail to believe it. Why, to quote 
Paul a, his affirmation in Romans is exactly to 

the point ; things that are made being seen from the 
a of the world, sufficiently reveal God ; so 
that m use for not knowing Him 

Him, even His eternal power and 
which knowledge and worship bring sai- 
nt W sometimes how beautifully the 



SAL VATION UNDER ALL Rl 

new Book reads: " By Him and far Him arc all 

things made that are made." He who names the 
only scheme of salvation has his own sign-manual in 

these flowers. By Him and for Him — there is a 

great logic in nature, strung together by the Chri 

God. It shakes hands with the logic of Provider 
strung together by the Christ-God. .And they twain 
are one with the logic of the Book, strung together 
by the Christ-God. But all this which Christ has 
joined together, your scepticism and atheism and 
infidelityj and mine, may not put asunder. There- 
fore we say that this view of Him who names the 
only scheme of salvation, makes salvation possible in 
all conditions of humanity, in all races, under all re- 
ligions; the possibility lying exactly here in the faet 
that God himself, the Christ-God, as to the matter in 
hand, is always so adapted to human want as to be 
available, and to take away all excuses from that 
humanity, if the proffered boon be not accepted. 
The possibility lies, let me repeat, in the fact that sal- 
vation is ever available from the providential adapta- 
tion of Jesus Christ to the wants of the human soul. 

Passing this, I remark again that we find, under 
such views, Jesus Christ very much broader than we 
sometimes suppose; the Christian religion which He 
names, very much ampler than the two covers, not 
of this Book, but some books; the possibilities of 
salvation sweeping a vaster scale than the stretch 
and the soar and the diving of some men's minds 
would seem to indicate. In a word, infinitely broad, 
if we dare to be consistent — broad as God Himself, 
3 



CHRIt 

whose thought and whose heart this scheme of love 
and hh When we come to take up the matter 

intelligently, thinkin men can think and 

think, we find that this is the underlying 
We find that God has but 

one grand scheme of relations toward man, starting 
n eternity, unfolding all through time, unbroken, 
unbroken, until the consummation in the world of 
eternity at the Other end; born of God, under the 
luct of God, maturing in God at last, from whom 
and through whom and to whom arc all things. 

We recollect a sermon two or three Sundays ago 
on the coming One, the memorial Name which shall 
be "my name forever," the name of the Comer. 
Here it is. Christianity has been coming into the 
world, into human life, into human character, so fast 
and tar as man himself would permit it, ever since 
men began to exist It is the unfolding of the 
scroll ; it is the development of the drama; it is the 
growth of th tern of Divine life propa- 

in our human life, and no scheme 
(elf-constituted human tinkers to patch up a poor 
administration of the Divine government. God 

, God all through, and God at last. 

" I am the Alpha and Omega," says this very name, 
Christ, — "the first and the last;" the golden chain 
whose primal link is a primeval heart-throb of the 
vah. and whose terminal one — the 
chain having circled the universe — joins back to its 
mate in th . broader, broader vastly, than 

He is - -I.. . ;lu. 



/ . Rl \ST1 \ 



Hut j>. on, I notice, in the next place, that 

just here it is that we strike the elements ol 

in Christianity. We are fond of calling it the 
religion of the world, the race We sometim 
pray for its diffusion, We sometimes think we are 
heart-heavy because of the mighty millions given to 
destruction from the lack of it. All well ; but let us 
be intelligent with ourselves. What are the ele- 
ments of universality? Wherein lie the fitness and 
substance of this all-inclusive characteristic? If we 
will look, — if we had time right here, we could 
Come upon that. Has not Christ been the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever? That which in Him 
is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, makes 
Him universal as the Saviour. That in Christianity 
and its grand system of thought and inspiration, 
which makes it the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever, constitutes the elements of universality in it, fit 
for all time, all places, all conditions of man — start- 
ing from God, coming to God again. The counter- 
truth to that is this, namely: that in man's nature 
which makes him a fit subject for what is universal 
in Christ and his religion, is the element of univer- 
sality in man, exactly. That which is the same yes- 
terday, to-day, and forever in man, is the universality 
of the race, what is common to it. Naming it any- 
where, if we do not put a false name, we hit what is 
in every man. Exactly the same in all men of all 
times, of all climes, of all races, in all conditions — 
exactly the same, made the same. Put that and the 
everlasting Christ together, and as one is hunger 



28 \LVATION BEFORE CHRIST. 

and the other is bread, you have consummated the 
grand reality of salvation stipulated for from the 
foundation of the world. 

I might delay at length upon this. You see I am 
tempted to. You perceive I ought to do it, in order 
to clear up the whole matter; but you give me not 
the hours to do it now. I should thus be obliged to 
n<>tc the grand native impulses planted in man's 
soul by God. I should be obliged to examine the 
original intuitions of his nature which God deposited 
there as the postulate of the argument that should 
link the human soul to his existence, and the con- 
scious affirmation of that existence. I should be 
thrown back' upon the constituent elements of our 
being: and when I had brought them forth, and 
awakened them to their true function, then I could 
show Jesus Christ and His religion, and you would 
see how the two fit. Thus we should understand in 
what consists the universality of this religion, so 
Divine and so human, throbbing and thrilling 
through the history of the whole race from ever- 
lasting to everlasting, as God's grand scheme of 
salvation. 

But having said so much, I pass on to ask, Isn't it 
about time in the world, after eighteen hundred 
years, nay, after four thousand years, nay, more, 
after counties science begins to tell us, 

through which this Christ drama has been hinting 
and whispering and struggling itself forth into man- 
ifestation — isn't it about time to begin to handle 
the great question under these broad elementary 



constituencies that enter into its substance? Isn't 
it about time to drop a great deal of th red 

"putter" that is made the sum and substahce upon 
which men have staked their salvation, and begin to 

take up these elements of universality, the great 
conception and scheme of God in Jesus Christ, and 
His religion towards man? — to take them up in the 
length and breadth and abiding persistency of their 

Very nature? If Christ is thus broad, if all the 
things are true which we specified in our introduc- 
tion, isn't it about time for the intelligence of the 
world, for the manhood of the world, to welcome 
gladly these elements of the problem, and make 
them the bone and marrow of pulpit-handling and 
pew-handling? Isn't it time, in a word, — since 
God has struck the hour for it, opened the way, and 
unrolled the scroll of his thought sufficiently, — to 
take up the universal elements in this problem as 
they challenge the reason of man, that feature in the 
Divine likeness, than which none is grander, diviner, 
or more significant? Isn't it better to be following 
after these lengthening cords, and holding on to 
those fixed firm stakes of universality, than it is to 
be praying solemn prayers on one side of the mouth, 
and making up faces at rationalism on the other 
side? No man in that way can serve two masters. 
The time is at hand when all these elements of 
universality must be marshalled and disciplined like 
an army drilled, and all through Christendom, and 
all through the world, they must come together as a 
solid host to breast the assaults that are made against 
3* 



30 XLVATJON BEFORE CHRIST. 

Christianity. You cannot tie up the old thrums and 
rotten strings that did baby-work once — a g 

Divine work, because that was the way God adapted 
himself to the world at that time. You are to have 
the strong cords and the long cords — immortally 
long and divinely strong — of universality as they 
touch Christ and his religion and providence, and as 
they touch you, your nature, which that religion is 
for.' 

Christianity is no thing of modern birth, ending 
in apparent death. It is older than time, continuing 
on beyond time, born out of God and his eternity, 
trailing on the path of immortality. And I shall 
live and think and unfold the scroll hereafter; yea, 
not only as I could here, but infinitely better. So 
there comes the gentle, tearful refrain, " I would not 
live always/ 1 The heart liveth forever. Mightily 
more, yonder, shall be the revelation of this one 
Christ scheme towards us, than we can get here. 
J [ere it just germinates in our conception. There it 
shall bloom and sing in the great cantos of reason 
and rhapsody, and there shall be no flagging to the 
tide of that song. 

( >ne said I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy 
likeness. The likeness of Christ and God sleeps in 
every soul, in capacity. The problem of salvation 
is to fill those capacities with the substance of the 
very ( k>d himself. 

See to it, then, not only that you bear the name 
of the saving One and Tower, but that you bear 
what the name means. When you think of the 



K. K 31 

Central City, when you think of the one 
you think of the multitude of paths that conv< 
there, remember one thing: the key % nothing but the 
— only that Have you the nature as well as 

the name, the " I am " — who named the only power 
in the universe according to Christianity, by which 
man can be saved? Have you this key? Seeking 
that, having it, hold no anxiety in your soul's out- 
look, as it gazes toward the land beyond the great 
sea. 



II. 

THE TWO COVENANTS. 

The mediator of the new covenant* — 
Hebrews \ii. 24. 

INTIMATELY interwoven with the thought and 
associations of all Christendom, is the idea of 
two covenants, called the Old and the New; some- 
times called the "covenant of works 91 and the " cove- 
nant of grace!' 

The old covenant, or the covenant of works, so 
called, is held in this fashion: It is believed that God 
made a contract, or covenant, or agreement, or what- 
ever word may best carry the idea, with Adam, the 
first man of the race, as its head and representative, 
to the effect that, should he keep the command, ob- 
serve the prohibition, and successfully carry himself 
through the proposed order and trial, he should live, 
he should be saved; and therein and thereby all his 
posterity, the race of men, should live and be saved 
and not die. 

The test pivoted on a single prohibition. In the 
phrasing of the Book : " Of every fruit of the garden 
might this first man eat save one ; of the fruit of the 
of knowledge of good and evil he might not eat. u 
To partake of it was to die. And in that death, and 
in that failure of Adam's trial, were invoked the 
death and destruction of all his posterity. That was 



77/ 

the firs! covenant, or the covenant of works, based 
upon this primal Edenic transaction. 

The problem, you remember, failed. The first 

man stood not in his integrity, but came to disaster. 
And consequently, the idea is, all mankind are in- 
volved in that disaster. That act in the drama is 
closed. That dispensation of works is ended. 
That first covenant is exploded, and there is nothing 
more in time or human life about it but the mere 
record of its nullity. 

After that failure, a new proposition was made by 
God ; a new covenant was made called the covenant 
of grace, or Christ. This was to take the place of 
the old one; to be a substitute where it had failed ; 
a necessity created by that very failure ; necessitated 
by this disaster and doom and death connected with 
the first covenant. This new covenant so called, 
substituted for the old one which had been broken 
and had failed, is also called Christianity or the 
Gospel, the covenant of Christ, the hope of the 
world. Now, the faith of the world pivots on this 
instead of the other. 

So it seems that if Adam had only shown a little 
firmness, had only stood his ground under the 
assault of temptation, and done what he should 
have done, and what he could have done if he was 
to blame for not doing it, then this new covenant 
had never had any necessity, or place, or fitness of 
any kind, in the fortunes of the human race. Mad 
Adam done what he ought to have done, he would 
have defeated this latter order and dispensation of 



i 11! I'll 

the I I, by having superseded the necessity 

it; by having made the very idea of it futile, inas- 
much as there would have been no need of it. 

Now I leave it to you to manage the problem — 
for I decline the responsibility — how it is that in- 
finite Wisdom came into such a pass ni things, that 
it" Adam had d^)\\c what he ought to have done, and 

thus had | I God, the whole Gospel dispensa- 

tion would have been superseded and we never 
should have heard of Christ. Life and immortality 
had never been brought to light A new nature had 
n :ver been dreamed of, and all that prophetic vista 
[lory .md grandeur which the unsealed vision of 
man now drinks in by the clarifying touch of the 
Gospel, had been as night, as nothing, never having 
come so much as into the dream of human anticipa- 
tion. 1 lad Adam pleased God at first, he would 
have wiped out the second Adam in advance, and 
all the grandeur and glory resulting therefrom. You 
must manage that for yourselves. Such is the putting 
and position of matters. 

That I speak not at random when I say that the 
general belief and acknowledged faith of Protestant 
Christendom with regard to the two covenants — the 
one substituted for the other, and the necessity of 
the second created by the failure of the first — is as 
above stated, is obvious. For, on this very point, 
that rated document, the Westminster Confes- 

techism, speaks directly, sustaining exactly 
this view. 

The 1 2th article of that Confession reads thus: 



35 

"When God had created man he entered inl 

mi of life with him, upon condition of perf 
obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of 
knowledge <'i good and evil, upon the pain and 
penalty ot death/ 1 The 16th article reads thus: 
"A covenant being made with Adam, not only for 
himself but for his posterity, all mankind sinned in 
him and fell with him." The 15th article is on this 
wise: "The sin whereby our first parents fell was 
their eating the forbidden fruit " And then comes in 
the 20th article: " God, of his own good pleasure, 
did enter into a covenant with Christ to deliver man 
out of a state of sin and misery, and bring him into 
salvation by a Redeemer." 

This is standard authority, and is the same thing 
that we just presented. The whole grounds on the 
Edaiic transaction. 

It is assumed, you perceive, that before the fall no 
covenant of grace was needed. God was running the 
world very much on the system that men sometimes 
call Deism — the system that recognizes God, indeed, 
out of sight, but no revelation of Himself in any 
distinct or set form. This assumption carries the 
idea that there was no Christianity, no Gospel, no 
Christ, no new covenant, prior to the failure of the 
Edenic transaction, which necessitated Christ and 
the Gospel and the covenant of grace. It assumes 
that the antagonism between the new and the old 
was exactly between the covenant of works made 
with Adam in Eden, and that made in and with 
Christ after the failure of that first arrangement- 



36 THE TWO COVENANTS. 

So that, upon each, three or four things need to be 
noticed particularly. 

Fir>t : You will observe that the New Testament 
nowhere, from first to last, refers to that Edenic 
transaction as a covenant of works, in opposition to 
the Gospel or the covenant of grace. The reference 
by the New Testament is to the Mosaic order of 
things, to the Sinaitic code, to the whole economy 
of Jewish life and nationality and polity, extant 
prior to the advent of Christ. The contrast between 
the new and the old, is between Christ and Moses, 
and not between Christ and Adam. Read the New 
Testament and you will find it so. And on that 
ground Paul's reasoning stands firm, whether in 1 le- 
brews or Galatians, in Colossians, Corinthians, Ro- 
mans, or other epistles. He tried to lift Jewish faith 
and life from the old adjustment, namely, the cere- 
monial, into the new as enunciated in Christ. That 
is the whole push and pull of the argument of Paul 
in these grand epistles. He would have them take 
the new in Christ, instead of .the old in Moses, or 
Israel, or David, replacing the whole Jewish nation- 
ality, theocracy, monarchy, polity, and all. They 
wax old, but this is the same yesterday, to-day, and 
forever. 

Might\' hints of logic in these casual words, whose 
latent fire, by implication, consumes all the cobwebs 
and rubbish that have tangled the minds of men 
from the beginning until now. 

condly : The real truth about the new covenant, 
or the covenant of grace, is exactly this : // was or- 



77 n. 37 

- of G founda 

the It is that covenant which unfoldeth the 

eternal purpose oi God that was hidden beneath the 

a mystery so long, and which, in the latter 

days, and in the fuhiess of time, came out into mani- 
festation to the world. The covenant of grace was 

the original covenant; not made after the failure of 
the Edenic transaction, but existing prior to its in- 
auguration ; existing prior to the creation of man ; 
in the great language of the inspired epistles, or- 
dained from the foundation of the world, in the 

ginning, from the old eternity. 

The third thing to notice is that the Edenic trans- 
action itself, instead of being in antagonism to this 
original covenant of grace, is concurrent therewith; 
instead of militating against it, is necessarily expos- 
itor)- thereof. The truth is, that early transaction is 
a part of the great connected whole; one link in the 
unbroken chain of the development of God, ordained 
in the Christhood of God, from the beginning of the 
infinite nature. So that Adam and Abraham, and 
the whole Davidic line, to the grand and mournful 
catastrophe of the Jewish polity, are so many links 
of that unbroken chain ; so many acts on the stage 
of time, one after another, through which the one 
original drama of the grace covenant is evolved and 
brought forward. 

In the fourth place, notice why, the truth being 
thus, this eternal covenant is called the "new cov- 
enant" It is, in fact, older than all others. Why 
call it the new one " For the same reason that any 
4 



38 THE TWO C0VENAN1 

llled new. The good news which the 

timed was old as eternity, but new in 

tunc ; not heard of before; a novelty freshly divulged; 

I just become patent. God has Spoken what 
lie thought in silence from all eternity, and that is 
the news; never heard of in time before. This is 

the revelation of the mystery hidden beneath the 
5, of Ephesians an 1 Colossians, called new for 

the above n ason ; new in the order of time; old in 
the order of thin 

Come now to notice, more particularly, the idea 
and meaning of the word covenant itself. This cov- 
enant that God made, was it of the nature of a con- 
tract, after all? of a bargain? of an agreement? Jt 
takes two parties for that; and in all such cases each 
party lias its right, has its option. Either part}' is 
competent to suggest, consent, concur, withdraw, or 
object. Each party is voluntarily bound. There is 
no compulsion about it. There can be no right or 
validity in a contract where tyranny imposes it; it is 
despotism, it is wrongness ; it is not a covenant 

The idea of covenant in the text, if not this — and 
I submit that it is not, and cannot be such ; God did 
not offer it as a party to a commercial transaction 
with Adam or the world — if not this, I say, what 
then ? I reply it was the divine offer, the divine 
plan, the divine scheme propounded by God himself 
alone with relation to man, unfolding his wisdom in 
that relation, setting forth his love in that relation, 
and also his power. It was the grand scheme which 
God threw at the feet of man, holding in itself what 



I [e pn man, and > u/H< ; ed 

exalt him and perfect him, and make him a child 
of the new world; to make him eligible to 

ill his new and spiritual dominion. This is the 

mighty plan. I am thy Father; I am thy protecto 

I am thy provider; says Ciod. This is what I pi 
pose to do for you, and in you, and through you. 

The contract was made with Himself; it was his 
m voluntary proposition, without consultation aside 
from Himself; God's offer, God's plan of making 
man what He would have man to 1 

Having thus .en of the covenants in their 

relation to each other, and as to their grounds, let 
US now take up the idea of Mediator — Jesus the 
" Mediator of the new covenant." What does this 
mean ? What idea does the word convey ? It is 
almost inextricably interwoven with the thought 
and association of Christendom, that the Mediator 
of the New Testament is one standing between two 
btdligcroit parties, having in hand the great matter 
of their quarrel, — his mediatorship being exclusively 
to secure peace, negotiate a reconciliation. The 
mediatorship of Christ is limited to that, and Chris- 
tendom predicates nothing else of its function. But 
is this correct ? \\ 'hat does this word mean ? What 
is the idea conveyed? Forget, if you can, all historic 
associations ; drop all the glasses through which 
you have looked at the word, and come at once to 
its meaning. What is it ? 

When the Government of the United States sends 
a plenipotentiary to England, or Berlin, or Vienna, 



40 THE in 

y, that the two nations arc 
at war? and that the high d had not been 

save as there had been this hostile condition of 
things? We send ministers in times of peace, db 
? And there are thousands and thousands 
of ill i be handled by that mediatorship, that 

have nothing to do with quarrels. A merchant sends 
his agent throughout the land; docs that imply 
that the commercial interests of the country are in 
civil strife, and all this agent has to do is to make 
• mediation? And unless it is so, docs it 
follow that the word negotiator, or mediatorship, has 
no meaning ? 1 )oes it follow that the landlord and his 
tenant on noble acres, are in a deadly feud simply 

lUSe the former sends his factor to collect 
rents ©f the latter ? They may be lifelong and loving 
Friends, and the factor have nothing to do but with 
Lheir friendship. Does it follow that every shop- 

per in Milwaukee is simply a pacific negotiator 
between the consumer and the producer, because 

re is a quarrel between them ? Arc father and 
children at variance, because he employs a tutor to 

h and correct them ? There may indeed be con- 
flicting interests in all the relations supposed ; there 
may be hostilities ; these may be deadly in their 
alienations, or they may not. It is not necessary 
that tlie condition be a hostile one in order that we 
i the idea <>f mediator. 

nuncius, an official, a functionary, 
I unit, between the heart of God and Jus children. 
In the first place you see at a mere glance, if you are 



GOD ///' ■ v. 4I 

ilcctin-; men or women, how imp it is (<>v 

the Absolute and Infinite to hold any m irse 

with the finite, except through a medium, or by 

mediatorship. Vfou see at once it is not I 

to assume a quarrel between God the Father and his 

children. Why, 1 limself is the grand mediator after 
all. He mediates between the hunger and bread of 

every child — the grand commissary, or mediatorial 
provider, not for wrath or hate's sake, but for love's 
sake. You see that this office was not ordained 
lately, but was ancient as God ; was included in his 
purpose and beneficence from the foundation of the 
World. Indeed, it was the very matter of the original 
covenant of grace, and there never was any other t 
enant of grace. We were created into it. The star. 
awoke their bright beholding in the arms of it, and 
all creation, and all things that are made in any wax- 
are made in the interest of it ; and without the inter- 
est of this mediatorship nothing is made that is made 
You see that it never has been superseded — never. 
// is the original policy of the original government of 
God, laid dozen when lie ordained it. You perceive 
that this line of purpose has never been departed from, 
from first to last. Every time the curtain has been 
lifted of the theatre of Providence, in eternity or time, 
it has disclosed some new act of this unbroken line of 
mediatorship. God is executing that purpose now. 
It was enunciated by Christ more grandly than by 
any other man. It was whispered in the promise of 
Eden ; it was typified in the figure of Noah ; it was 
divulged in the transaction with Abraham ; it was 



42 THE TW< 

adumbrated beneath all the types and shadows of 

Judaism ; till at last it came forth in full articulate 
utterance in the sublime Word — God manifest in 
the flesh. The grand Logos of the Alexandrian was 
taken up by John to speak forth this grander contin- 
uity of the heavenly manifestations. Here you have 
the seed-thought of the Lord, or Immanuel, "God 
with us," down here in the low intermediate state be- 
tween the Infinite and the finite; between the Abso- 
lute and the relative; between God and man; here 
working to work man up from his low primal state, 
to the high consummate finish of the hereafter. 

Now, do we not know that nothing is more diffi- 
cult than for men to broaden and lengthen and d& 
their ideas of things ? And it is more difficult in 
religion than anything else, because there is a sort 
of sacred bias, a sort of conscientious thrall about it. 
But from stage to stage, life must broaden its think- 
ing, must expand its ideas; and it must be able to 
leave the old stations and emigrate out of them into 
new worlds of light and glory, or the world will die. 
Confine the bird inside the shell because it began 
there, and the thing will die. Imprison the callow 
brood in the primitive nest, and it will never have 
wing-power, but will die. You must emigrate, how- 
ever sacred may be the cradle in which you were first 
rocked. You must leave the old places where your 
faith was first warmed to bud and bloom, and the 
very bloom itself must fall off t or no fruit will set. 

We know how averse men are in their Christian 
thinking, to any revision of their ideas. I don't ex- 



t to di from your minds this morning 1 

ii to — the old set and stereotyped 
idea of two covenantSj one to make up for the de- 
ficiencies of the other; as if one half of the exchequer 

of God at last had to be expended to repair some 
trouble that lie had not foresight to provide for in 
the beginning, I don't expect to dislodge this; and 

I will add that it may not be wisest, voluntarily, even 

to open the eyes suddenly to the sun, bright and 
beauteous as it is. Nature herself has taught us 
lessons here. Out of midnight, gentle dawn comes 
with gentle, velvet fingers, to touch the eyelids and 
gradually fret the organ of vision into confidence 
enough to awake and behold the light and live. We 
could not see God and live, we are told. We may 
be injured by the violence of a sudden flash of truth, 
somtj of us not having looked that way or gotten 
the habit of it. Men don't want to re-examine their 
faith. They don't want the trouble of it. They are 
conscientious a great many times ; they think it was 
once right, and what is once right is always right. 
Ah! Is it? Once an egg always an egg? Once a 
mud-hut always a mud-hut? Because that was the 
first habitation of civilization, must it always be? 
We must re-examine our faith or die. Old Judaism 
said she would not re-examine; and she stuck to the 
promise until about ten or fifteen years ago, and so 
she was a vagabond in the world. Old priestcraft 
and old priest-ridden Europe said they would not 
re-examine their faith. When Luther sounded his 
trumpet-blast, the infallible Mother held on to the 



•14 TH 

unrevised; and now her gouty feet and clumsy 1 
like a Fugitive, rnie shelter and res! for 

her last waning da) 
O, those noble Beraeans ! How much better than 
t of us, who examined even the word of God 
f| and they did it daily, to see "whether these 
things were Who have examined these two 

nants to see whether they are so? But they 
not the Word of God; they are but the sayings 
of men. 

What would you think of a man who should say, 
" I prefer to take passage on a ship constructed by 
some former generation; I prefer to cross the At- 
lantic in that, r ither than risk your new ones." What 
would you think of it ? Why there is not a ship, 
however staunchly built, sailing out of New York 
harbor, that is not subject to re-examination tvery 
time she casts off for a new voyage. If this were 
not SO, would you be underwriter? Would you be 
isigner to any such custody as that? Would you 
be passenger? The children of this world are wiser 
than the so-called children of light. All the under- 
writers in the world could not make strong the worm- 
n and rotten keel and ribs and sheathing of a craft 
built sixteen generations ago. It was sound as God's 
thought then; constructed by the best skill on earth 
then ; navigated by the latest and most approved 
charts. But Would you think of consigning a cargo 
t<> Liverpool, one of you — or any other man with 
his >pen — if you knew that the ship would 

be navigated by a chart a thousand years old? 



77/ 

In your faith you are shipping not only 
England but for eternity; not only a few paltry 
s' worth, but the worth of your soul* in a craft 
that you refuse re-examine* Arc you and I to 

ml up and challenge the faith of the whole world, 
endorse a policy which says, "Unless you gn 
your faith to what was laid down in past ages of the 

rid, I will confiscate your property, I will stretch 
you upon inquisitorial racks, I will hand you over to 
the fagot ? " Arc we ready to do that, and yet refuse 
an examination of our propositions? It is no sign 
of an intelligent Christian to do this; and thousands 
upon thousands would sooner go down in the old 
craft, where they are comfortably nested in their 
berth, than take the trouble to rcship. Not that 
they would put it in that way, but that is what it is. 

The Westminster divines, from whom I have 
quoted, met in 1648 — in the 17th century. They 
were appointed as a commission by the Parliament, 
not by God, or God's spirit, or any college of apostl 
but by the civil power, without inspiration or infalli- 
bility, to get together some sort of codification to 
compose the distracted thought of the time. They 
met. They were good pious men ; good men as ever 
lived before them ; good men as have lived since. 
They did their work as well as they could. And yet 
that assembly was divided. There were hot discus- 
sions, and the things that they carried were carried 
by a mere majority, with strong protest against them. 
And yet what they did, has constituted the Protestant 
spectacles through which the Bible has been looked 



46 THE l.YTS. 

at e- It is by their refracting power that 

the unity of God has been resolved into this double 

:it ; and the view lias been perpetuated. 

Those divines were not God's infallible agents, but 

the agents of the Parliament of Great Britain. 

During th the late (Ecumenical Council 

at Rome, we laughed to scorn the idea of infallibility 

d upon a mortal by an assembly of mortals as 
imperfect as himself; and even at that, so divided 
that their vote was carried against a very strong mi- 
nority. We remember how the most intelligent 

ops in that convention were opposed to that 
barefaced dogma. The brain of German}' was op- 
posed to it, just as the heart of France favored it. 
And yet we stand here to-day, voting infallibility to 
the British Parliament of two hundred years ago, 
where the\' had no better agreement in their Council 
than there was at Rome the other da}'. Men had 
rather be let alone, a great many times, than take the 
trouble to be made better. The}' had rather have 

. and comfort, and spontaneous rest, than to take 
the trouble and responsibility, and industry enough, 
to be better. The}' will accept anything, many times, 
rather than be at the trouble of doing anything that 
looks like improvement, or of doing and being any- 
thing different. 

The truth is, God from the very beginning of cre- 
ation, and as far back as we cau go in our conception, 
beyond creation, has been translating and manifesting 
Himself. The first rough draught was thrown off in 

lion itself, in symbols, in signs, in flashing glories, 



47 

and mystic hieroglyphics; and the world could hardly 

decipher them. It looked and saw men and God in 
the fantastic dream of Waking. The dream was some- 
times of glory and sometimes of gloom. Even then, 
in the darkness, there was a skilful mixing of C< 

that was going to paint daylight on the coming sky. 
Then again God threw out a better translation of 

Himself in the making of man. And all along 
through providence, He has dropped the curtain 
and translated, and then lifted it and thrown out the 
translation to be studied and read of men ; and SO 
from symbol into figure, and from figure into event, 
He has come; until at last He spoke articulate in 
his own Word made flesh, and the world knew Him. 
And now if we don't read even while running — nay, 
though fools, it is because we love darkness rather 
than light. 

God is not done yet. Finer and more literal trans- 
lations of Himself are to be rendered in coming time. 
As long as our race shall live, God will have some- 
thing more to give out; and it will be all in the line 
of this original, unbroken purpose, which is the cov- 
enant of grace. 

Have no misgivings, therefore, friends; no mis- 
giving as to faith, as to truth. Stand to the covenant 
which says, "Before Abraham was I am." Wonder- 
ful allies are coming out of the darkness into light, 
and offering their enlistment in this work of faith. 
Let us not tarry around the old tents, the old camp- 
fires. Strike the tents, and let the camp-fires wane ; 
and advance, for God is our Leader. 



48 THE TU 

Men have failed in all ages and under all religions, 
and will continue to fail. Every man is an Adam 
Over again; not because Adam was his master, but 
because he is a man. 

Whenever, soul, you sit in disaster — sit in tears ; 
whenever you feel broken with the weight of things, 
understand you are sitting at the feet of wisdom. 
Failures are teachers; and by the light of their wis- 
dom you re-illumine your torch. There is no hap- 
hazard in the covenant plan ; it is straight and con- 
nected. We feel, indeed, that we are disimparadised 
at first. But every mortal is thus set into a new 
path, whose everlasting paradise is at the other end. 

The Fathers gave you and me faith founded on 
cloister life; but we must get out of that into the 
broad live world, where the heart tugs and toils; 
where patience kindles the fires of virtue ; where 
character is crowned or discrowned, and the new 
manhood gets its rough hewing. The broad world 
of living humanity is the theatre of Christly devel- 
opment Thither go forth, says God the Father, 
and achieve. There build your great convictions ; 
there make the true confession. In life is Immanuel, 
the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 

Do you not know that the newest things are al- 
ways the oldest? Do you not know that the first is 
always the last? The eternal covenant there is 
called new, because it was the old one not heard of 
brfore. Time is but the manifestation of eternity. 

When tli >er >hall put his sickle into the last 

harvest, it will be to gather the fruitage of the first 



THE TWO I 49 

planting. When we shall be in the blaze and bl< 

Of Paradise above, that Paradise will be but the 

ccuted covenant ordained from the foundation of the 
rid. 

Accept, then, this bond of unbroken continuity, 
this linked chain of grace and purpose from first to 
last Grasp this unity of faith and knowledge of the 

S >n of God, and so keep the original covenant of 
life, It is one and full, spanning the ages, covering 
all human vicissitude, threading together all finite 
phenomena, till the last link in time joins on to the 
first in eternity. Write this one covenant in your 
faith ; make it the law of your life, aird execute it in 
your CHARACTER; then, nor life, nor death, nor temp- 
tation, nor disaster, shall separate you from the Love 
that ordained it from the beginning. 
5 D 



III. 

THE METHOL REVE1 X. 

lie that built all things is Go J. — Heb. iii. 4 

re all thin ol. L 17. 

SO there was gravitation before apples fell or 
orchards grew. There was electricity before 
there were thunderbolts or telegraphs. There was 
art long anterior to artists; religion long before 
there were any saints or sinners. Before .Abraham 
was, Christ is; and prior to all revelations He was 
and is God forever. 

Last Sunday, by a rearward course of thought, we 
followed back Christianity from scattered hints to a 
connected whole, founded in the nature of things, 
even in God Himself. This morning, by a reverse 
order of thought, we wish to begin with God, and 
follow Him out and forward, along the ways of self- 
manifestation, unfolding, or revelation. Then, we 
went from the branches back to the root; now, we 
would begin at the root and work toward the 
branches. Then, we passed from the finite to the 
Infinite ; now, we would go from the Infinite to the 
finite At that time we went up from diversity into 
unit)-; to-day we would go down from unity into 
diversity. Last Sabbath we felt our way back from 
man to God; to-day we would feel our way from 
God to man. 

50 



; i 

And her ne the 

of God without proving it; for your patience would 
find fault with me for two things if I should attempt 
the proof. First, for mixing up matters that should 
be kept separate in the handling; and secondly, for 
taxing you for long hours beyond the terms of all 

stipulation. So the validation of the existence of 
God in the human mind, will give us opportunity for 
another discourse. God, then, exists. Coiled up 
in Him, if we may use such human language, lies all 
that ever did or will come out of I lim. Enfolded in 
God lav the universe, providence, and redemption, 
as an oak lies folded in an acorn — the germ ; that is, 
order, intelligence, purpose, love, as they stand 
stated in all these external expressions, inhere in 
God, natively. The grand scheme into which those 
few hints last Sunday guided us, validated ultimately 
in the nature of things — the nature of God Himself — 
slept in his being from eternity. 

The final scheme, I say. Now, from that point let 
us think a little outward, saying everything that can 
be said in forty-five minutes — or sixty, if accidentally 
I should touch the latter. Beginning at the God 
point, let us think toward time and man. 

The first conception that we have of the manifesta- 
tion of God, or the revelation of Him, comes from 
Creation. His works — Nature, the declarative glory 
of the heavens, the mute, mystic ciphers in the deep 
earth, are the works of God as much as this Book. 
Everything that God has manifested of his own 
thought, love, and will, is revelation thus far and 
therein. 



5 2 Ml 

The next conception after creation, that we have 

of the manifestation of God, is in law, government, 
rule; or, in one word, history— ox Providence, if you 
like it better. For there we perceive not only intel- 
nce, not only order, not only the enunciation of 
some previous design, but we behold a grand con- 
ted course of things. It is a chain with no lack- 
links. I listory, as men have come to understand 
it, and accept it, and handle it, is a growth from 
some primal conception vital through the ages, 
through the race, on to the end of the race, out of sight. 
That is another revelation, another grand book, as 
really as this Book is a revelation ; not specifically the 
same thing, but in the same unbroken interest. 
The next conception we have of this unfolding of 
I's purposes, thoughts and designs, we get in man 
himself — in his nature, his soul. Here we come to 
the dim outline of the original as we get it nowhere 
else. Here we touch the personal manifestation of 
God. Here revelations begin to he conscious. Old 
nature is not conscious ; man is conscious — outlining 
the Maker and the Father dimly in prophecy, in 
history. When we come to the end of this matter 
of man, the design as in him, the purpose for which 
he was created as a manifestation or revelation of God, 
it will be just as if a man should look into a looking- 
glass; or rather as if God himself had at last bur- 
nished a bright plate that would glance back his own 
So that here we pick up the grand old ideas of 
/idence, of creation, of redemption. These three 
; r one, just as the links in a chain make one. The)' 



ir - 53 

are one in origin, one in end, one in administration — 
revelation of God. 

There an great determining instincts in the 

world — call them institutions if you like it bet 
any name that will mean the thing best to you. But 
say here, there are two great determining in- 
stincts animating the world : one is the instinct of 
. the other is the instinct of something higher 
than St'/J] outside of self and beyond. One is you, is 
me ; the other is God. These are not deductions ; 
they are not inductions; they are self-affirmative; 
they are perpetually emphasizing self-assertions. 
The first selfhood, or self-consciousness, roots in the 
second, or in God. The seGond, or the instinct of 
God himself, is manifested in the first. You root in 
the Divine nature; the Divine nature blossoms in 
you. These two reciprocal vitalities, these two great 
primal, correlate functions, make creation, make his- 
tory, make redemption. Creation, providence, re- 
demption, get their interpreting key-thought out of 
these two instincts. 

Now, it is to be observed, in noticing the law of 
revelation and manifestation of God, in the first 
place, that all early conceptions of religion by the 
human race — all early manifestations of God or 
revelations to the world, are metaphorical, not logical 
after the fashion of modern sermons ; but metaphori- 
cal, symbolical, highly figurative, emblematic, para- 
bolic; great pictures adapted exactly, you perceive, 
to the early and crude state of our race — that is, its 
childhood state. 
5* 



54 REVl 

What do you do, parents, with your children the 
first years of their lives? Do you not give them 
playthings, play with them, talk high wisdom in the 
language of nonsense, forge and fashion and link 

syllogisms in terms of beautiful illusions? Don't 
you suppose God is as wise as you are? By and by, 
when they become men, they will not go back to 
their playthings to complete the superstructure of 
their manhood. You go back there for the instinct 
that prophesied your coming; and if you find that, it 
will be a clue to the divine wisdom that ordained it, 
as well as to yourself. 

In the second place, it is a law of revelation to go 
higher and higher, each manifestation of God being 
in advance of the preceding one. After nature, his- 
tory; after history, humanity. Or, to handle our 
thought on the form of historic religion-, first, Feti- 
chism; the lowest kind of religion — a religion that 
makes a god of a stick or a worm, calling it Him, a 
Being, a Power. After that, Polytheism; a higher 
range of thought, a broader, truer conception; for 
while there be many gods under this, the idea of 
Divinity is very different in Polytheism from what it 
IS in Fetichism. After Polytheism, Monotheism. 
] Iere the mind gathers out of broken diversity, unity ; 
and here it comes not only to one God instead of a 
million, unifying and catching the pulse of the grand 
harmony of things, but Spirituality begins to work as 
a force in the percipient mind, — thus higher and 
higher. We cannot tarry longer on these points. 

But in the third place, the law of Revelation is 



REVEL I /». 

h that God gives himself, reveals him; -If to the 
world just as last as the world can bear 1 lim. Why, 

n here, late as the time of Jesus Christ, I [e said : 
" I have man\' things to say unto you, hit ye cannot 

tr them now." You cannot understand now, hut 
by and by you shall understand them. And this 
higher preparation consists in your interior Subjecti 
development; in the opening of your eyes; in the un- 
stopping of the ears of your soul ; in the waking of 

ir reason; in the quickening of your conscience; 
in the development and maturing of your whole in- 
ward being. 

In the fourth place, God gives every revelation 
that He makes in such a way as to com f el study. 1 [e 
gives himself fn the hint form, in the figure form, in 
the symbolic, in the parabolic form ; in such a way 
that you are obliged to seek, and to seek with all 
your heart — heart meaning the whele man — if you 
find. God did not propose to raise up a race of 
sloths or sluggards or moral spomjes, making it a 
virtue that they have not dishonored God by doing 
anything themselves. That is not the way of his 
wisdom; but dig for the hidden treasure; toil night 
in and out, and day in and out, without ceasing. 
" My Father worketh hitherto," sand the Master in 
the very law. And revelations are given not only 
so as to compel study and search, but they are not 
given in any infallible form, as if to save man from 
the possibility of making a mistake. He can mis- 
take, and will mistake if he is not up to time in his 
duty. Thus the law of Revelation is such as to cul- 



56 METHOD OF REVELATION. 

tivate the sense of responsibility, cultivate the moral 
nature as well as the intellectual. 

In the f.fth place, it is a law of Revelation that the 
scale of its advance shall be, if you let me use the 
word — and the sooner we learn it the better — cos- 
mical. I like to see an idea condensed into one 
word, instead of being spread over a hundred. It is 
the law of Revelation, then, that this scale of advance 
shall be cosinical ; I mean that it shall be in fraternal 
sympathy (frith the great heart of all things, the 
great divine fellowship of all God's thinking and 
purposing i.i creation, in providence, in redemption. 
The matter of Revelation, my friends, this matter 
of religion, is not one you can take up between thumb 
and finger, a mere patch, sterile at that, detached 
from some corner of your existence. The scale of 
advance, higher and higher — higher and higher — 
must be the scale of the universe, breaking faith at 
no spot with aught in God's great scheme. 

And in the lr.st place it is a law of revelation that 
its benefits shall be cumulative ; that is, hold all you 
get, and get all you can — not rest upon any single 
possession or conquest, but making all the base 
from which to push out still further aggressions — 
hold it as so much to which a great deal more is to 
be perpetually rdded. And thus we think of Reve- 
lation and its la >vs. 

Now here we strike the great law of progress. 
Many a mind las caught that idea already. The 
law of progress!: What is that? Nothing but the 
law of the nature of things. Note how this is asserted 



THE I 

in science* Science tells us that the world vva 
progressively. Some men, in attempting thold 

o\ the cosmogony of the Hebrews, tell us that at 

first there was nothing but mist, nebulae; and th< n 
out of that grew, progressively, order, stars, worlds, 
until there came to be the 'solid fact which we have 
now in the heavens. No matter what theory may 
prove true at last, we are not at the last yet ; the 
grand primary truth will stand, that science asserts 
this great fact that God has manifested himself in 
creation progressively. 

History asserts the same thing. It does it in the 
fact that history is a growth from a seed started, so 
to speak, from a germ, and carried on to the devel- 
opment and unfolding of its life more and more 
diversely, branching and rising towards maturity. 
This law of progress is asserted in all the religions 
of the world — the whole of them. I instanced the 
lowest, and then the next highest, and then the next, 
and so on to the end. Even the Old Testament 
from first to last shows this ascending scale, reveals 
this law of progress. God does not talk to the 
world, in the opening chapters of Genesis, as Me 
talks in the time of Moses, as He talks in the time 
of the Kings, as He speaks in the old Prophets, and 
in the old Poets and Philosophers. An ascension — 
a grand growth of utterance appears; also an assumed 
developed capacity in the world to hear. And when 
you go out of the Old Testament into the New, and 
the New into the Old, the New stands as much 
higher than the Old as Monotheism stood higher 



5 8 mi 

than Polytheism — as a man stands higher in his 

work in life than the child with its playthings. It 

s not Mllow that the Old Testament enunciates 

the New, any more than the man enunciates the 
child, or the child the man. The question is, 
whether we see it ; if we do, wc can talk about it; if 
not, better talk about something else. 

And now, right here is where we should be wise. 
ause there is a law of progress, the world of 
religious thought is greatly stirred. Old things are 
passing away that were once thought sacred to the 
heart, like the early drapery of children and their 
wooden horses — grand and divine so long as child- 
hood lasted. But the world is nearer manhood than 
ever before ; and in the ages to come it will be vastly 
nearer than it is now. What I am saying is, that 
the very stirring of thought, recasting of thought, 
not only in religion but in all things to-day, is born 
out of this everlasting law of progress, which is the 
law of God's manifestation of himself in the world. 
The great stress of the mind to-day touching religion 
e how religion may be grounded in the nature 
of things; how faith may take_the hand of reason 
and go down to this everlasting solitude, over which 
phenomena may drift forever and ever without dis- 
ing it So that this law of revelation, being the 
law of progress you perceive, teaches that institutions 
are good until they are outgrown; and after they 
>wn they are just as bad for the world as a 
child's clothing is for a man, or his playthings for 
the implements of mature industry. The same law of 






59 

divine revelation tells us also that we have no 
sion to fear .' that science is no disturber of 

il, everlasting religion, It tells us that is 

a form, one of the chapters of the whole revelation 
of God. 

This law tells US also, when we g(y back, when we 

make our pilgrimage rearward, we don't go to j 
forms i we don't go to the tribunal of phenomena for 
authority. We go back for essences. We go for 
that which is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever ; 

for the root, the seed; the divine, not the human; 
for the eternal; the immutable, not the changeable. 
Then it is beautiful to go back. But the same law 
of revelation tells us, also, when we cast a glance 
ahead, it is not for the sake of cutting clear of the 
present or the past ; it is for the sake of the better 
enunciation of all that was true and abiding in the 
past; for the sake of the more practical handling of 
all that we have on hand to-day. God is not a wild 
license in Himself, in his laws, in his methods. He 
is orderly. He is conservative as He is radical, and 
radical as He is conservative. Things hold together 
forever and ever. Things are vital forever and ever, 
for God is not a great automaton. Therefore He is 
radical ; therefore He is conservative. Thus we find 
God always in the world. He never w r ent out of the 
world. In all places, not only in the height and in 
the depth, but here on the lip, in the heart, He is, 
if we have the discernment to find Him. 

There is a theory of the world called the mechani- 
cal theory, the purport of which is, that God made 



60 i /vox. 

the world as a grand system of law and order and 
wound it up, and then left it to run itself. 
There is no life in it. It is a dead machine. Itgoes 
as well without God as with Him; and the theory- 
devised in order to get rid of the necessity of a 
Now, that is not the Christian idea. The 
Christian idea is, that God not only created the 
w<»rld, but that He is putting forth the selfsame exer- 
tion eternally which originated it. In I lim the world 

only began, but constantly lives, and moves, and 
has its being. God is creating now as well as at 
first, and will be; otherwise, this created finite per- 
petuity of things would relapse into non-existence. 
We see, also, that every age has its particular lesson 
given it to learn ; and we see likewise, that each age 
can learn its own lesson. Every time, even' period, 
every section in Providence, is like a recital in a 
school. The lesson to be got is mastered, and 
the end to be found out is God, so much of God as 
is manifested at the time. It can be done; and 
h. nee it is that God does not condemn one age for 
not conforming to another. The old Hebrews were 
not to be condemned because they were not Chris- 
tians after the manner of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John. And the New Testament men are not to be 
condemned because they do not conform to the 
standard of the Old Testament, or any other religion. 
must be true to the lesson set for it and in 

1 . i demands that, and has made it possible. Be 
true to your life-hour, soul; and the greatest and 
the grandest can do no better. Time is one long 



Th 6l • 

revelation sp >ne long self-declarative scope of 

1, one grand manifestation of Him in work, in 

providence, in love; and the end is not yet ¥ou 

cannot find a book in history or theology that limits 
time, creation, love, revelation, and the manifestation 
of God. There is no such book but a foolish one. 
It is impossible in the nature of things. The end is 
not yet 

In the light of such thoughts, we see plainly that 
if a man wishes to validate what lie believes, if he 
wishes for a foundation to erect his faith on, he must 
not seek it in the human element of revelation. He 
must not seek it in the phenomenal element, but in the 

■ential element. lie must not seek it in the mate- 
rial of history, but he must seek it in that which 
makes history. So I am not disturbed, as I before 
hinted, when the critics come and tear this Book all 
to pieces. So far as my faith is concerned, it matters 
not whether the Book exists or not, as to the essence 
of things. The critic may find faults and flaws in 
history on the assumption that history is logic. He 
may find the same fault with the Bible, with the pic- 
torial, figurative, childlike playthings of the Old Tes- 
tament, that the mathematician found in Paradise 
Lost. He said he could not see, for his life, what it 
proved. It did not prove anything, because it was a 
poem ; not a syllogism, but an inspiration blossom- 
ing out with ideas, and w r ith revelations too pro- 
foundly deep for the handling of logic and dialectic 
limitation. If you wish to validate your faith, don't 

go back to any form of words or facts that any man 
6 



62 

has ht into exisl that any body of men 

have voted [fyou want to make a creed for the 

whole world, wait until the evidence is all in. You 
had better put that work off until you get into the light 
A is a verdict predicated upon all the 

evidence pertaining to the case, or else it is a false 
I rod instinct, a- wall as the self-instinct, 
ha- always been in the world, and always will be ; 
and ymi must provide for it if you are a philosopher, 
a thin 1 , believer. 

Look at Christianity then. Just here, let us ask 
ourselves what claim Christianity has, after all, over 
and above any other religion. If God is revealed in 
every chapter of providence, what is the pre-eminence 
here ? What claim, let us ask, has the curriculum 
for the university, devised by the best scholars of the 
world, over the curriculum for the nursery, or the 
preparatory school, or the public schools in the 
various wards? The claim of fitness, evidently. 

Just look at Christianity and mankind, and 
how it fits as no other religion does. When a man 
looks into this mirror, he sees his face with its wrin- 
kles, blotches and all, as no mirror ever flashed him 
back to himself See the elements of universality in 
Christianity, which you find nowhere else. If God 
IS developing one connected scheme, we should infer, 
from the mere ttea n, that a religion 

to must include the elements of uni- 
ality. Christianity assumes to fill all places and 
all conditions and all Fashions of human life and 
chai 1 l\^:n take the ethical principle - of Chris- 



tianity. We find them validated in the natun 
things The} phenomena. 1 1 

that talked about them and revealed them may 
ideas and the great principles will 
rooted in the nature of thii 
and back finally in God. 

The Christian relij us, in addition b 

purer morality, a truer culture than any Other reli- 
gion. Thu md thing. It assumes to handle 
men's nature, '.oped ; 5, mend 
its broken possibilit md reconstruct the grand 
whole as no Other religion assumes to do. And 
then, finally, it has in it the transcendental element. 
I mean it assumes to hold things by some power 
that transcends this life. Time, nature, all things 
n holding over, linking man to immortality. 
That is its transcendental element. No other reli- 
gion has this as the Christian religion has. 

Now you will please take notice that, for any man 
to leave that which is better for that which is worse, 
proves him not a sensible man; shows him a bad 
thinker, not a true philosopher. lie is not even a 
respectable scientist. You will notice again, to leave 
the better for the poorer, the higher for the lower, is 
to leave the living God and go back to the dead God. 
I mean to the mortuary records — to the footprints — 
back to those old forms and conditions out of which 
life has come. All true thinkers determine their 
thought in the last and best things. God in time 
and providence reserves to the last in form that 
which is first always in conception. In truth, the 



64 ME TH( >D OF RE l ELA TION. 

Alpha and Omega arc one in nature and design. 
While the Alpha becomes a husk, an antumn-lcaf 
rotting and perishing, the Omega waxes strong, and 
tower- and sings in triumph towards higher asser- 
tions and expressions. 

There are several things that need to be empha- 
sized just here, as coming from the train of thought 
we have pursued. 

First, ( ) soul, never throw away what you have, 
■r as it is, until you can get something better; and 
remember that the better is not to come from that 
which God has left behind, but from that which He 
has yet to give the world. Keep your faith awake, 
looking toward the East whence light arises. 

Secondly, If you seek to do such work, never 
ground your faith on phenomena, but in the nature 
of things. 

In the third place, keep your religion in high sym- 
pathy, as I said a little back, with the whole universe. 
Treat your religion as if it were a legitimate child of 
the Father's House, not a foundling by the way. 
Treat it as if it were a brother to every truth in the 
great Family of truth ; as if it were kin and kindred. 
having the very life-blood of the whole. Keep your 
religion warm in such sympathy, and you may de- 
pend upon it, it will grow — it will thrive. 

Again, in the fourth place, be true to the law of 
correlation. What do I mean by the law of correla- 
tion ? The law that tells you if there is such a thing 
as the eye, there is something for the eye to see ; the 
law th.it tells you if there is such a thing as hunger, 



s such a thing as bread, Be true bo this law, 
or you are wrecked. Men get into trouble h 
They say, sometimes, all we need to know is inside 
o\ us. All there is, is " consciousness." They m 
as well say, All there is of the bird is his wings, no 

need of air; all there isofthe fish is his fin-, no n 
of the sea; all there is of man is his stomach, no 
need of bread. Be true to the law of correlation. 
What avails it for a man to say, I do not see light, 
if he has a blind eye? What avails it for a man to 
say, 1 am poor and have nothing, therefore there are 
no riches in the world? Don't be so foolish a- to 
say, because your purse happens to be empty, there 
is no such a thing as gold in existence. You an- a 
purse id yourself. You may be empty, indeed, but 
you were made for something. Be true to the law of 
correlation, and it will guide you through the storm — 
through all revelations. It will hold you to God as 
the anchor holds the ship tossed on the wave-. 

In the fifth place, rate every man for what he is 
icoj'th, and conclude that he is worth just so much 
as he conquers in these grand lessons which God 
sets him to learn. Just so far as he conquers these 
by search, by reverence, by love, and by the use of 
all the faculties and powers within him, just so far as 
he comes to know God behind all revelations, and 
takes Him into his character, has he manly worth ; 
and no further. 

Now a great many may ask, what is the use of 

preaching of this kind ? What is the benefit of such 

sermons, talking of philosophy, talking of science, 
6 * l ; 



66 ME i < HOD OF RE I '//,/ /'/< >.Y. 

talking of ideas? On K it keeps the brain 

alive and saves US from the scandal that a man's 
brain withers and decays in religion as nowhere else. 
It keeps the brain alive; it keeps the man awake, at 
any rate, I venture to say every one who lias fol- 
lowed closely this train of thought, has not nodded 
once; you have not drowsed, you have not even hung 
the head in fatigue. Familiarity witli God as he is 
revealed, his thinking in creation, in providence, in 
our history, in our revelations, his great sympathy 
in the world, induces infinite wakefulness and stimu- 
lation in his creatures. It is good for that at least. 
Then these are the matters in hand to-day. I might 
bring before you every Sunday what was decided as 

utial to salvation in those old councils fifteen 
hundred years ago, which the Oecumenical Council 
at Rome has recently attempted to saddle the world 
with, and make essential to salvation for the next 
fifteen hundred years. I might bring these things 
out and make them the staple of my preaching. I 
don't know how it would be with you, but a great 
many would think it the true thing; a great many 
would not agree thereto. 

There is a law of advance in religion, even in 
preaching. Dogmas and institutions are good until 
the world has outgrown them. The great effort of 
that Council was to anchor the nineteenth century 
back to the ninth; to send the world backward, not 

r God, but after man, to the devices which lie 
happened to think of God. Now to handle matters 
in this m6re modern way is, I think, to meet a want 
of the times; and you will see it more plainly when 



77 'V/W 6j 

I give the next reason, viz: thai if religion does nol 
take the lead in interpreting God and interpreting 
man 9 something else will take the lead. If the pulpit 

and the pews eject the nature of man in relation to 

God from its subjects, and refuse their handling ad- 
mission, then mark this : The platform and the press 
and the academic club will take charge of the matter 
and lead the thought of the world. If he who pre- 
tends to believe in God, and draw his faith from God, 
is not able to show a reason for that, and how all 
this life and the principles of the universe stand 
related to God, somebody else will show a life and a 
universe, and another reason, that will leave God out. 
And religion, as we now profess it, will just have to 
turn antiquary and go to the rear, or stand as a wall- 
flower while the living play goes on. Such are rea- 
sons why the pulpit should do its own work. 

The priests of old, you remember, asked Galileo 
why he made such disturbance in the world. Are 
not all things settled? Were they not settled in 
that council, and in that creed, and in such formu- 
laries ? The idea that this whole grand scheme of 
worlds somehow or other is related to God, and is 
singing his name, shining out his glory; why, you 
are upsetting all the theology that has been settled 
for the last thousand years, said the priests of his 
day. Nobody else said it. What are you doing, 
said the theologist only a generation ago — certainly 
within two — what are you doing, O, geologist? 
You go down into the earth and make it after a new 
fashion, and then come up here and upset Genesis, 
arraying science against revelation. Anxiety was 



Mi W. 

not aware that s< ience is itself a book of revelation 
as well as other books. But what is the upshot of 
it all? Why, all Christendom has conic to shake 
hands with Galileo; and all Christendom has come 
hands with fists; while there arc 

other hands still to he shaken. God has not stop] 
He has hot left the world. He is not done telling 

what lie thinks. He is not done building man, 
building providence in the world. He is at work, 
and ever at work. 

Take heed, Kings and ancient Bishops. Ask 
the people why they are making this turmoil? The 
people will answer : There is a law of progress 
which is tlie law ofGod, which is the law of history, 

which is the law of mind ; and that is the law o\ 
motion and commotion. The old past is always 
muttering and complaining of the present, and much 
more of the future; while the grand truth is, God 
ever lives, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, 
leaving the things that are done, and talking Him- 
self out into the things that are before. 

Yes, ( iod empanels a new jury in every generation. 

I le empanels a new jury in every case of thought, 
of truth, of faith, to be tried. It is not within the 
prerogative of the old verdicts to nullify or limit the 
jurisdiction <>f to-day. No: God is not done re- 
Himself yet. Let us be true to the lesson 
on the blackboard for the recitation-hour. Let us 

tudy-hour, asking most of all 

the meaning of the lesson in hand. That will root 

for the time, m God and in his Divine methods; 

and by and by, when He h mething mon to say 



REDl LINKl (*) 

which heart has no! conceived, you and I shall 
blossom on the boughs of that higher expression. 

We shall sing there if we root in Him instead of 
ting in man, in the temporal, in the human, and 
in the perishable. Books shall moulder away, and 
the moth shall eat the very Word that speaks the 
high Name. Nature shall crumble, time shall wane 
and come to an end ; but God shall live, sing, and be 
God in higher manifestation after the sun has ceased 
shining, and the heavens are rolled together as a 
scroll. Happy will he be whose thought, renewed, 
quickened, purified, reconstructed and developed, 
shall be able to look at God and see Him face to 
face, as now he sees Him only in part. But not less 
happy is he who can see God in the bright light 
hour, and understand Him in every lesson of his life 
set for him to learn. 

I happened to take up a book, last evening, in a 
book-store, in whose opening preface I read this : 

u The work of creation and redemption is a unit. 
The purpose of God in creating man ran through 
all history and all the works of nature, looking to 
man to be recreated and revitalized, that at last man 
himself might shine in the very image of God, and 
sing the hidden sweetness of his heart." 

That was not the language, but that was the 
thought. And I felt cheered, that one of the 
leading and living Christian thinkers of the hour 
flanked the leading idea of my last fifteen years' 
work. I took it as a solace, not as a boast. And 
if we will put our sensitive fingers upon the life of 
public thought anywhere, r/e shall feel the pulse of 



;o Ml \TION. 

this truth throbbing as a leading symptom. I pity 
men who run away from the living hour and oppor- 
tunity at their door, and think that they arc doing 
us service by gnawing at the old bono of dead 
ideas and < obsolete exj >i ns. 

Open your faith, then, broadly, Christian thinker 
and Christian believer. Open your prayers so 
broadly that they shall take in the fragrance and 
the quick inspiring life of the whole summer of 
God's visitation to your world. God is coming, 
ever has been coming, ever will be coming, more 
and more. The original Name hidden in Him, "I 
am 1 le who shall be, the coming One," is ever true. 

We have touched some of the laws of God's 
manifestation ; we have hinted at the grand end ; we 
have pointed at the great lesson of duty. Life and 
the univer not atheistic. God lives in them, 

and is living through them unto you. True believer, 
your soul shall be the grandest revelation of God at 
It shall wear a crown of glory bright and re- 
splendent, before which all the glory of God's iyani- 
festation in time shall be nothing but shadow. 

Follow back the hints, then, wherever you can; 
gather them from the lips of the Master, from the 
writings of the Apostles, from old Prophets, from 
History, from Providence, through all Creation; 
gather up these hints and trace them back, back, 
back, until you come to their source. And then, 
having touched God by your own spirit, let that 
spirit touch and quicken yours. So shall you, glory- 
lit in the splendor beyond, be the last, final word that 
I shall speak lor i limself. 



IV. 
THE ONENESS OF RELIGION AND THE RACE. 

He hath made of om \U nations of men 

for to d\ :rth, and 

hath determined the times bef Inted, 

and the bounds of their habitation, — . 

of the Apostles \\ii. 26. 

THIS is the text — but if we read the next verse, 
we shall see the purpose of it, namely: "that 
they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel 
after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from 
every one of us." 

Here is a grand and graphic statement of man in 
his relation to this mundane state of things. The 
object of it is distinctly hinted, and especially the 
high feasibility of the attainment of that object. 

It seems that man is one, from God's point of 
view; one in nature, one in design. Man, wherever 
he is individually, is man universally, in the consti- 
tution, in the capacity, in the intent of his being. 

But equally true is it that in his circumstances he 
is diverse; his habitation is appointed; his condition 
is specific and ordained in the very scheme of his 
being. Men differ on the ground of individuality, in 
their aptitude and specific fitnesses; differ as to their 
geographic relation, origin and capacity. They are 
born in different centuries; dwell under different cli- 
mates ; contend with and overcome diverse forces ; 

71 



72 ONE \ OF RELIGION AND 77//-: RACE. 

and work out specifically, and instrumentally. diverse 

But as man is one in his nature, and as religion is 
a birtli of that nature on the human side of the ques- 
tion ; — I once before said that, and a "single-eyed" 

man went and reported me as declaring that religion 
was of human origin entirely; — but the great truth 
will stand and hear repeating, nevertheless, that re- 
ligion, on the human side of the problem, is a birth 
from man's nature, an inborn, innate necessity of his 
spiritual being, just as hunger is an innate necessity 
of his body ; — since, I say, man is one, and religion 
an outbirth of his nature, why is not religion one? 

We reply, religion is one. Notwithstanding, ac- 
cording to history and observation, it is so broken, 
diverse, and conflicting, it is one at the root When 
we are radical, original, human and divine enough, 
we touch the oneness of this great truth in human 
nature. Let us handle it in various aspects. 

Imagine — and there is no violence in the suppo- 
sition — that some superhuman intelligence from 
another bright sphere should visit this earth, and 
stand in the presence of all the nations made of one 
people, and begin to question them. Think of him 
as fust addressing them thus : "Oye nations, men of 
time, do ye all believe in man, in humanity?" "Yea," 
is the quick response, "we all so believe." But the 
question goes on, "Do you believe in religion?" 
.And the murmur goes up like the breaking of many 
waters: " We all believe in religion." " Yes," con- 
tinues the interrogator, "but have you all sacred books^ 



i.v ANGEL J 73 

have you all Bibles, have yrou all Scriptur " [n- 

deed we have/ 1 answer the Hindoo, the Persian, the 

Hebrew, the Christian, and the rest. " You say that 
you have these/ 1 continues this inquirer; "but then 

I ask, have you all revelations from a higher world ? " 

44 Yea and Amen," is the quick answer, "we all claim 
to have revelations ; that is the way our books come 
in the main." But closer than that the question is 
put : " Do all ye, who have your religions and your 
books, believe in the Divine inspiration of those 
books?" " Wc believe in nothing else; we all 
claim it, and it is set down in the books themselves ; 
it is maintained by all the prophets of our faith." 
44 Possibly," says the visitant; " but have you, all of 
you, miracles ? do you all believe in miracles? have 
your books and your faith been tested by miracles?" 

II In every case," is the prompt reply. " You have 
but to read our sacred books to find it so ; there is no 
historic religion in the earth that does not claim the 
validation of miracles." "Oh, indeed," continues 
the questioning; "but is it a common faith with you 
all, that virtue is better than vice? that your reli- 
gions have a bearing upon the hope of some better 
condition of your humanity by and by?" "Even 
so," is the unanimous answer here. 

But the great questioner advances : "I perceive you 
all agree in the main; are all of one mind, one faith, 
one family; brothers all; but are you at peace with 
each other?" 

Here for the first he strikes a discord. " No, no, 
great visitor; we all quarrel; there is no agreement 
7 



74 OF RELIGION AND THE RA 

whatever between us; we deny each other; we are 
in antagonism ; we excommunicate each other." 
Such is the confession. The Mohammedan looks 

n the Christian and calls him "infidel." The 
Christian looks upon the Jew, and pronounces him 
outcast wandering in the earth. The Jew de- 
nies the Christian faith, believing that to be idolatry, 

the last profanation in Jewish sensibility. The old 
I [indoo cannot tally with the Persian ; and the Egyp- 
tian breaks faith with them all. And so they differ. 

But leave everything else and come to the Bible 
alone; how there? We find at once that its devotees 
are broken into two great parties. One professes to 
believe the Old Testament simply; the other takes 
both the Old and the New, and they fight it out on 
that line. 

If now we drop one-half of this contention, and 
come simply to the Christian side, we find that also 
broken into two. They all believe in the same* Scrip- 
tures ; in the same miracles ; the same inspiration 
and revelation; but are divided; the Catholic 

denying the Protestant; the Protestant protesting 
through and through against the Catholic. 

If, however, we lop off one-half of this antagonism, 
and take simply the Protestant side of it, where we 
should expect homogeneity, fraternal sympathy, if 
anywhere — what do we find? Infinite diversity; all 
broken up into denomination-, cliques, each 

striving to get the better of the other. One denies 
what the other i , and sometimes because the 

other a it. And thus it is with this last result. 



VITY WITH DIVERSITY, 

By this time the angel visitant is confused and 
takes his leave, meditating upon the tangled problem 
of this religious conflict between the children born 
of one parentage. 

But whence this conflict? I will tell you. It 
comes from putting the accident in place of the 
sence; it comes from treating the saw and hammer 
as though they were the temple; it comes from 
taking the sign for the thing signified ; from putting 
the circumstance in place of the substance; man in 
place o{ God. 

But is all this broken diversity useless, or worse 
than useless ? By no means, if we rightly estimate 
it. It is providential. It is set in the order of things 
by Him who appointed the diversity of habitation 
and endeavor everywhere apparent. And the mo- 
ment the world comes to see this fact, the compati- 
bility of unity with diversity, one spirit with endless 
administrations, old rigidities begin to relax ; asper- 
ities soften ; persecutions and anathemas melt away ; 
men break their exclusiveness, and thought becomes 
genial and fraternal. For each sees in every other a 
common origin and design ; each sees, underlying 
the whole, the grand universal principles and purposes 
struggling for dominion. So inspired by the percep- 
tion of these are the contestants now, that they are 
ashamed to remember their old bickerings, though 
when they knew nothing else, contention was their 
worship. ■ 

The moment the providential intent becomes mani- 
fest, there is the beginning of a new era in the mind. 



;6 RELIGION AND THE RACE. 

Just look abroad upon the earth and see how religion 

been necessitated to this very diversity. No 

such sacred look as this Bible could have been given 

to the whole world at once — to the men who have 
other sacred hooks ; and theirs given to the race and 

age of the world that asked for the Bible, would have 
been an anachronism, a thing out of time. Revela- 
tion is progressive, and adaptation is one of its laws. 
The moment we distinguish between the circum- 
stantial and passing away, and the substantial and 
abiding, old interpretations begin to fall off, giving 
place to broader and better ones ; some tilings in the 
books themselves, that we have considered so sacred 
and so essential, are destined to pass away like 
autumn-leaves when the fruit is ripe. The provin- 
cialisms of religion come to an end in the growth o( 
the world, and the mind and heart broaden out into 
it cosmic currents and orders of things. The 
mal, fundamental, underlying ideas and purp< 
touching man in connection with religion, rise to 
self assertion, and are glad to get utterance in the 
faith and convictions of a broader intelligence. The 
ntials become more and more, and the non-cs- 
tials less and less. The diverse sects and denom- 
inations, churches and creeds, begin to open their 
oors for outlets and inlets, permitting them 
to swing both ways. Amplitude of faith and con- 
VlCtion knock down the old partition walls; there is 
an interchange of manhood and brotherhood among 
the children and nations bearing one blood and one 
purpose. The underground connections, the vital 



raphs, be 
ganize. As there is oneness in ( 
comes to be more homogeneity in expression. And 
the world's fight grows less and le 

But another great question arises in the handling 
of these matters. Will the time ever come when all 

these external distinctions and diversities shall dis- 
appear never to be heard of again? No : that time 
will never come ; it need never come. But this is 
what will take place : Men will cease to put the cir- 
cumstance for the essence, the letter for the spirit ; 
• will put things in the right places and call 
things by their right names. Things which can and 
should fraternize will wax stronger and stron 
while the elements of hostility will die out. The 
grand diversity will be increased even like the parts 
of a chorus, making the harmony richer; but the 
discords will drop out. Every man will be allowed 
to sing his own part, play his own instrument, and 
wear his own face, without being excommunicated 
for it. Each will know the other as his brother by 
the elements of brotherhood, not by clothes or creed 
or geographic position. Every man will be allowed 
to have his own interpretation, and for that reason 
will not think of denying that right to any other 
man. Possibly they may both be true. Eraternally 
they may stand and work on a broader foundation 
for their difference. The great, universal, primal 
principle of love to man will grow mightier; love 
to God will assert itself with more powerful sway; 
and love for truth because it is truth, will surpass all 
7* 



78 v ./.w 

other passions. The universal will increase ; the acci- 
dental decrea* 

Now, what men want in this world just at this 

time, is to know each other; and not stand fenced 
off in isolated corners, peeping over their ramparts 
and shooting out their challenges and drawing re- 
turn fires. They want to know each other; exchange 

salutations; look each other in the eye; look inside 
of each other. They must examine the old family 

^\\>\ inquire, whence is my neighbor? why 
walled off there? who is he? whither is he joiner ? 
Then the mystic etching of the heraldic device will 
begin to blush up, revealing the old common an- 
cestry. Then men will exclaim, " We are children 
of one Father, after all ; we have no right thus to be 
Ishmaelitish towards each other; let us eat and 
drink and be friends together." 

It would seem that our own nation at this particu- 
lar time, has a great mission to perform in the way 
of God's providential usher to introduce strangers to 

h other. It is as though God, through us, were 
holding a grand reception, sending out the sum- 
mons to the ends of the earth : u Come, all ye who 
arc of a common origin, come bringing your faiths, 
your books, your traditions, your humanity. It was 
a wise forethought, which I always regarded as a 
Htial inspiration, that the founders of our Gov- 
ernment excluded all religious partiality from its 
Constitution; made no distinction, offered no favor- 

n, but gave ope common protection to every faith 
under the sun. I hope the Government may never 



;. 79 

from that policy. The Government was born 
at the bidding of thos< Omental principles, a staf 

ment of which we just supposed the angelic visitor 

to evoke from mankind ; it is founded on them, not 
on the circumstances of any book, or creed, or mira- 
cle, or anything of the sort. It is founded on man 
as he stands related essentially to his fellow-man and 
to his God. Let the Government stand firm right 
there. Never sign a petition, friends, that it may vary 
from that purpose. 

True catholicity of thought is abroad in the world. 
The nerve of intelligence is receiving and sending 
telegrams every hour from this deep underlying net- 
work of principles and ideas, that make the race one. 
The brain leaps and the heart leaps — at first in de- 
lirium, indeed, and there will be commotion until 
they come to grand balanced serenity and power. 
The nations are awakened ; the tide-wave of intel- 
lectual and spiritual earthquakes is rolling under- 
neath, rocking the surface. No man can live here- 
after, and be a narrow, stinted bigot in the world. 
The very remnants of the nobility of thought will 
hunt him, as an escaped spectre, back to his den. 
No brain can live walled up, when the time has come 
for the wall to be broken down. No heart can ex- 
pand and throb with noble pulsations, that sticks to 
it-: flower-pot economy too long. Its roots want, and 
must have, the range of all the earth for truth and 
life and nurture. No stinted and bigoted sectarian 
has a mission after this, save as a kind of providen- 
tial whetstone for the Damascus edge of God's truth 



8o S OF RELIGION AND THE RACE. 

and spirit. No nation can live a mere provincialism, 
walled up, set off by itself Just look at the waking 
and breaking of the oldest nations on the earth. 
China is anion-- us; Japan is coining; India is on 
the way; and out of Egypt Will be called citizens 
and sons in clue time. 

No Church has any call or any mission on the 
earth in this hour of the world, that is fixed to some 
old creed, or dogma, or ccclesiasticism of some self- 
constituted censorship or conceited primacy. There 
is no infallibility from Pope to Puritan. The infalli- 
bility of God and truth you and I are to acknowl- 
edge; feel after, if haply we may find it; while to 
man's usurpation we only say, Pfoarf, procul cstc 
profam ! 

I often think there is more breadth, more world- 
breadth of thought outside of technical religion than 
inside; whereas religion should hold the broadest 
thinking in the universe, because its main element is 
infinite. What is the secret of the rejection of Chris- 
tian ity on the part of a great many finely-thinking, 
finely-mannered, finely-lived men and women in the 
world? Why do they stand aloof from religion? 
Why do the\- take opposition to it? For its own 
sake, think you ? and because of those fundamental 
principles of it, which the angelic visitant evoked ? 
Not at all. Men are religious by nature. These 
outsiders drop certain interpretations that religious 
insid tick to; but religion itself they revere. 

Men of thought refuse allegiance to the mere acci- 
dents and self constituted standards of hierarchies. 



81 

and dethroned gods, but not to the King 

of kin 

I have thought sometimes that it would not be 
the strangest thing that anticipation forese'es, if God 

in his providence should raise up a Church in the 
future that shall organize Christianity on a broader 
s, inclusive of all the grand fundamental princi- 
ples of Providence, Revelation and Creation. And 
if that time ever does come, I doubt not some of the 
profoundest thinkers and believers that cannot get 
inside the Christian Church of to-day, will be among 
the priesthood and the elect of that new order of 
things. If that time ever comes, it will be because 
a broader welcoming of truth shall have sucked out 
the juices of the old schemes and policies, leaving 
them to wither like dry trees on the mountains, and 
building a new living kingdom in their place. 

When men shot that magnificent enterprise across 
the continent, the Pacific railroad, and along its iron 
artery fresh blood began to throb and thrill from 
ocean to ocean, the old shanties by its side that the 
spademen occupied while they were building it, were 
deserted and abandoned. If now the old occupants 
had concluded to insist upon it that those huts were 
still, and always would be, the great centres of trade, 
they would have made the common mistake of many 
religionists. After that highway was cast up, and 
the continent veined by a new life-channel, nobody 
thought of entering the old shanties to live, save 
perhaps marauders and speculators on their own 
account, or some hostile Indian or other enemy of 



82 REL1 \ND THE RACE. 

the road, opposed to progress, "squatting" there to 
put obstructions in the way. There is many a town 
in this country and in other countries, once flourish- 
and bidding fair to be the leading city of the 
region in which it rose, but simply because it did 
not fall into vital connections with the new channels 
of thrift, has shrunk not only to a third-rate position, 
but has been left to wither and dry up altogether. 
There can be no great city hereafter not situated 
upon a railroad, or upon a great river channel, or 
upon some ocean shore. There must be cosmopolita)i 
connections kept up, or there can be no development 
of life. 

Now, a great many religious denominations, a 
great many churches, are just like these old towns 
and shanties. On the whole, they are left. New 
channels of truth are opened, but they do not wel- 
come them. Providential highways are cast up, but 
the}' are not careful or interested enough to form 
connections with them. The train goes on, and 
they meditate in isolation, decay and pass away. 

Such is the order of things. It ever must be so. 
Highways are to be cast up, connecting ocean with 
in, continent with continent, nation with nation, 
in thought, in religion, and in civilization. The un- 
derground communications must be rife and glowing 
with vital me i ; the invisible cords and nerves 

of universal principles must organize the world anew, 
and ever be making it new. 

A great question arises just here: Will any re- 
on ever become the universal religion? It is like 



UA 

the question: Will any language orany government 
ever beo >me universal ? 

Doubt >ne will. But yet any such lan- 

guage will hav« Its dial my such government 

will have its subordinate municipalities; arid so any 

such religion, its distinctive administrations. Will 
the Christian religion become that universal religion, 
if there shall at last prevail such an one? That de- 
pends upon this principle, viz.: whether the Chris- 
tian religion has breadth and capacity enough to 
take in every other truth of every other religion on 

earth. If its channel is broad and deep enough to 
receive and welcome every true affluent, if its genius 

be elastic and copious enough, it will lead the world; 
otherwise not. The universal principles are the ones 
I just referred to, when all the nations arc assumed 
to answer back to the heavens — Yea and amen, we 
so believe. Lift them up, enthrone them; and if 
Christianity be great enough to include and wield 
them, she will become the universal religion at last. 

Will the English language ever become universal ? 
She is copious to-day, wonderfully so; and her bid 
stands higher this hour for universality than that of 
any other. But only as she has life and elasticity 
and catholicity enough to welcome and handle all 
the exigencies of human thought and sentiment and 
human necessity, will she lead. 

Will our own government, or any government 
like it, prevail at last, and give a kind of oneness to 
civil administration in the earth? That depends 
upon the same principle. If it be broad enough, 



84 ONENESS OF RELIGION AND THE RACE. 

if it have capacity enough, if it have sufficient catho- 
licity to welcome the whole social nature and neces- 
sities of mankind, then it will lead. If not, not. Such 
principles must determine, and they are worthy of the 
thought of ever\- Christian statesman and scholar. 

The problem of religion, then, is the problem of 
man himself. The great admonition is, enthrone 
the fundamentals at the beginning so that they shall 
become universal in the efld. Then fchere shall steal 
upon this our life, peace and reconciliation ; the alpha 
at first shall become the omega at last. 

Then shall the swords be beaten into plough- 
shares, and the spears into pruning-hooks. The 
heart and brain of man shall come to the great rest- 
da)', where work shall be without weariness, and 
praise without price. The scattered and dispersed 
tribes of faith and humanity shall be gathered to- 
gether from their long estrangements, and be one in 
the earth — as they were one with God in the begin- 
ning. 

In that coming day, which somehow or other we 
all believe in — the day of promise foreseen by pro- 
phets, sung by all the bards of time, the day of the 
world's jubilee; in that day, if the heralds thereof 
shall be seen to have been in the dawn-blush of our 
faith, in the day-star that hung in bright apocalyptic 
vision, then indeed are we, as a people, walking in 
dewy pathways, sacred and consecrated to Heaven. 
Well docs it become us to exclaim, What manner of 
men aught we to ho f 

May the fidelity of our stewardship be equal to its 
greatness. 



V. 

IMITATION AND DEVELOPMENT. 

Hi is not a yew who is o>w outwardly; but 
he is a j< is ont inwardly* — 

Romans ii. 28, 29. 

TI I K Jew, who is one outwardly, is a Jew of pre- 
cedent and pattern ; he is a copyist, a Jew of 
imitation. The Jew, who is one inwardly, is a Jew 
of the present and the future; he is a Jew of develop- 
ment, of progress. There is an external Judaism 
and an internal Judaism. My subject, then, this 
morning is, Imitation and Development. 

We shall aid ourselves by attempting to clear dis- 
tinctions. Imitation is external, while development 
is internal. The first is mechanical and artificial ; 
the second, vital and original. One, you perceive, is 
strongly and emphatically personal ; the other is 
entirely impersonal. Imitation is substitution for a 
thing; development is the essential thing itself. 
One is a shadow ; the other a reality. One is exactly 
the man himself; the other the circumstances of the 
man. Thus for the distinction. 

Now we see all things best in the light of perti- 
nent illustration. Pass then, if you will, at anytime, 
into a thrifty greenhouse in winter or summer time. 
There you see life in all stages, from the germ-seed 

to the floral crown and the finished fruit. There is 

8 , 85 



I MIT. \ VENT. 

loptnent. Beginning internally, unfolding gradu- 
ally, pr ively, from stage to stage, all that was 
inward at first be externalized in manifestation 
at last After that, step into a factory in France or 
elsewhere. There arc piles of satin, piles of silk, 
piles of paint, piles of wire, various kinds of material, 
various kinds of skill — artistic, educated or unedu- 
cated; and the great business there is to make 
flowers out of that material, to make plants; to imi- 
tate the originals. It is an institution of imitation. 

Pass into some of the great temples of the earth; 
they are covered on the surface with great, elaborate 
adornments; various colors and shades greet your 
vision. It is fresco. There is the form of the (lower 
and its color; there is the cut and carved column; 
there is the double-grooved cornice, and the grace- 
full}' sprung arch ; and nature herself seems not more 
articulate when she is speaking than this similitude 
— imitation ; marvellous often. And after you have 
thus grazed, go out into one of God's forests. There 
is a seed seemingly rotting in the decay and mould 
of ages — a little germ. A beam of light bores its 
way through the branches and whispering leaves, 
and wakes up that primal germ. It develops; it 
unfolds ; it organizes a knot here and a branch there, 
in the trunk' and in the growth; and by and by the 
workman takes it when it is matured, and cuts it, and 
smooths it, and covers it with the mysteries of polish. 
Then you see the living grain of the wood. That is 
what nature has been about under the guidance of 
her own inspired genius. It is development. Follow, 



also, the archil he begins taking the plan, 

which but paper and color, and see how 

he generates the cornice and the capital; and how 
he creates the arch and the column and the artist 
whole in your presence, of that pile of beauty ; and 
you will follow the development of the primal archi- 

tural conception. I lere you have, indeed, develop- 
ment % as at the first, imitation. 

metimes you go to the theatre or opera, or you 
attend in your houses dramatic exhibitions. You 
call them plays, imitations of whatever the original 
matter in hand may be. If it be the good Samaritan, 
everything is done that means that marvellous pic- 
ture. This is imitation. And after you have wit- 
nessed it, go into the Orphans Home, or out among 
the wounded and dying soldiers — there is the 
original drama. That, in its terrible unfolding, in 
its blood and tears and fire of passion and agony, is 
development. What we mean by development is the 
life-drama in all the acts and scenes. 

Did you ever see a regiment or whole army on 
dress-parade ? The equipments were all polished 
and glittering; everything was in taste and in order; 
all the motions exact. The dress parade is imita- 
tion ; a make-believe of the army in actual duty ; a 
sham fight, it may be, for the time parodying a real 
fight. But if you want development, if you want life 
in its struggles, in its self-manifestation and self-exe- 
cution, go out upon the battle-field ; go, if you pos- 
sibly can, back to old Waterloo, back to Marathon ; 
go to Sadozva, to Appomattox, to the Wilderness. 
There things are real ; no imitation, but facts. 



88- IMITATION AND I OPMENT 

bildren love to imitate ; they delight in play, and 
you love to see them. They get their locomotives 

and their train Connected, and tKey play railroad; 
the\- playschool-keeping; they play legislative assem- 
blies ; they play life. That is imitation. But real life, 
the grand evolving problems of civilization from age 
to stage — there you have development % 
LUSe there you have life in its unfolding and pro- 
ssive economy. 

So that anything conventional, anything merely 
external, may be termed imitation ; while life itself, 
in all its fortunes and phases and facts, is a life of 
lopmenty of originality, of actuality. One is 
make-believe, the other is sober fact; one is man as 
he is, the other is man as to circumstances. 

Now, 1 do not say that imitation is in every pos- 
sible sense illegitimate. It has its sphere, as in 
childhood, in decorative and symbolic art. We do 
not question this. But if you would see imitation in 
its illegitimacy, which more especially concerns our 
topic at this time, then notice it in its applications. 
For instance, Art. Men of money sometimes buy 
pictures when they get nothing but copies. We are 
not all artists, and wc cannot judge; so we must 
depend upon testimony. But how often we see 
described as the inspired production of some great 
master, some mere imitation, and poor at that. It 
is no work of genius. Art is development; art is 
evolution; art means the vital conception of beauty 
or truth, the progress of its unfolding in the mind 
jenius, until at last it stands all aglow in vision 



FURTHER II I V 89 

tone, the realized form of pei It 

is never imitative. Art is always original. Arti/L 
is not always original; usually borrowed. 

ply the distinction to Literature, and you sec 
the same thing. What is the difference between the 
scholar and the student? A scholar is an imitator, 

while a student is an evolver. A student is one 
whose mind is in process continually of vital de- 
velopment from central personal germs of power. A 
scholar may know everything in the world, and be 
nothing in himself. A student may know scarcely 
anything, and be next to Omnipotence. One is the 
birth and maturity of power; the other, the ma- 
chinery or instrumentality and the tools thereof. 

So in Morals. A man may be pointed out to you 
who never tripped — the law was not sharp enough 
to catch him. He was rounded on every corner; 
so polished and smooth that the very rain of heaven 
would fall off from him externally like oil. Inter- 
nally it may be different. Externally the platter is 
clean, nice and fine : — Imitation. Another man may 
be scarred all over, from the crown of his head to 
the sole of his foot, by conflicts of passion with him- 
self; from the fights with evil outside ; quick, strong, 
impul- xplosive. He may be covered all over 

with the stone-marks made by those hard, sharp 
missiles which conventional morality threw at him, 
and the uncharitable judgments of men ; while inside, 
where God's judgments frame their verdicts, the very 
fights he carried on with himself for the sake of the 

sublimest conquest, may have started germs of char- 

8* 



90 IMITATION AND DEVELi VT. 

actor and wrung out cries from his soul for help from 
God, tli.it make him in the end a Paul, or a Peter, or 
a Luther. When the outward scars shall all be 
healed over by spiritual granulation from within, he 
shall be fair and pure as the angels. While a mere 
:oed moralist, one who imitates right from the 
mere constraints of an outward conventionalism, 
may he inwardly festering with the virus of all un- 
cleanne 

Apply the same thing to maimers and you come to 
the same result. Who is a well-mannered man or 
woman? Somebody who lias read Chesterfield? or 
somebody who understands court etiquette, or who 
has snobbed it around among the parrots and par- 
venus of social conventionalism? Why, the figures 

in the showman's windows can do it with fewer mis- 
takes. Good .manners, high breeding, true quality 
of soul, gentle life — it is a culture, a growth. It 
comes not of imitation; it is a birth of graces and 
beaut\- and worth from within. It comes naturally, 
as blossoms come, answering to no prescribed pat- 
tern. A well-bred, well-reared soirl is a copy of 
nothing. The gentle, living, genial, beneficent- 
hearted man or woman, pure as sunshine, is God- 
made, trained and developed in that school of higher 
tuition from which all humanity must draw its finest 
finish and expression. 

Consider heroism. Did you ever see a mock hero, 
crying, " Don't be a coward!" Bravery at that rate 
i- as easy as it is cheap. Who is the true hero? A 

man with firm and mute lip, with fixed eyes, with 



9* 

blanched face it may be go down into the 

br charnel-house of dis^ nd from it pro- 

jec _n that shall turn back the 

advancir. >f the r, while he urn: 

at it is at the cost of I n life. 

Who is the hero? He who, if necessary, cannot 
on p to the cannons mouth when the battle 

but in some peaceful hour, for the sake of 
some grand victory out of which the jubilees of all 
time shall be made, can put the cup to his lip that 

,11 make him n r. Who is the hero 

at? Not he who brags of his virtue, and 1 
cellence, and his prayers, and his sanctity, and some- 
times his orthodoxy — but we will leave that out 
The saintly hero is he who, in the face of scri: 
and pharisees, dares to tell the truth because it is the 
truth : who dares to do right because it is right; who 
can afford to be just at a cost, and make a record 
that shall paint no shame in his face at last; he has 
saintly courage who can do all this without fear, 

or, or hope of reward. Such as this don't come 
to a man all at once. He can chalk it on the bla 
board ; he can dramatize it in symbols, stage efR 
or altar practice ; but that won't do. It must be an 
experience developed from within, of power and self- 
nder the law of God, the only acknowledged 

her law. 

Ck What is chant}- ? Great pockets full of 

money? That indeed is excellent; still, what is 
charity? A migh titution, a tract, a Bible, a 

missionarv soc: .tterine beneficence as autumn- 



/.)///■ I \ND />/■ VELOPMENT. 

leaves fly? A kind of sentimental philanthropy, 
dispensing patrol ily as it is acquired; 

wh( >t name is, after all, indifference? Nay, 

this is charity — the widow's mite, the great broad 

heart. The hoard of Croesus may be charity. If it 
has a beautiful spirit, a spirit broad enough to take 
in all the margin of the great life-play, all the con- 
flicts, all the ill the reciprocities of light and 

shade, singing and sighing, then wealth and power 
and glory may be charity. But this greatest of 
graces is an emancipated soul ; a soul touched by 
the love of God ; a high, mighty, suffering love of 
heaven ; touched in its L;erm-centre, unfolded, un- 
folding, into personal experience; growkSg, develop- 
ing, until it becomes a mighty fact, as God was a 
fact manifest in the world. Charity is help, sympa- 
thy, spontaneous, the result of a cultivated and dis- 
ciplined character; never done by proxy, never 
reached by copying, never possible by transcript or 
imitation. It must he born from within* You can- 
not tell who is charitable or wdio is not, by appear- 
ances. The most charitable man that ever lived 
never told of it. The grandest exhibition of charity 
that has been on this earth — nobody knew much 
of it but the arfgels. Once in a while you see a case 
like Mr. Peabody, or Mr. Stewart — I speak of them 
as honorable men of course — who seem impressively 
charitable. And yet real c' arity is that which is 
home born — born and reared in the way 1 am speak- 
ing of, whether it be known or unknown to the 
world. 



REL1 0$ 

Men have a passion for What is elo- 

quence? It" nun love anything in the world, it is to 
hang spellbound upon living, palpitating words and 
brain-throbs Prom some fount of genius and power. 

Who is the eloquent man, Demosthenes, Cicero, 
Burke, or Pitt? Who of our own land, Webster, 
Everett, Patrick Henry, or Henry Clay? Thoughts 
and words that speak and burn, and burn to speak, 
are born; they are a growth of utterance; they are 
an evolution of life and power. They ask no leave to 
be; they pattern after nothing; they are self-spoken. 
Mankind will live and be glad to hear and answer 
such. 

Apply the same thing to religion. That was the 
application in the text. Who are the saints in the 
world? Are they those men and women who seem 
to suspect that it would never be suspected of them — 
I mean sainthood — but for the great and liberal ad- 
vertisements which they often make, or attempt to 
make, of their goodness? Who are the saints? the 
men in dress parade, in fresco, in stage action, 
whether in church or out of church? experts at re- 
ligious machinery — are those the saints? Was it 
St. Simon so called, who stood on the pillar till his 
very nails grew to be like bird's claws — was he the 
typical saint? Or shall it not be rather some poor 
unknow r n toiler and sufferer, who works the very 
nails off until his fingers bleed, for man, for truth, 
and for love's sake ? Who are the saints, we again 
ask ? the dogmatists who fill the world with noise 
and clamor and strife and blood, about mere names 



I 



94 IMITATION AND I NT 

and wonls, about something which they think they 

must imitate from lather or grandfather, from saint 
or apostle, or somebody else ? Is he the saint, or 
the soul with Christly spirit, that don't know the 
meaning even of the battle words with which he 
hews out mischief in the world? Who is the saint, 
-till inquire? Is it that closeted one at whose 
lips an invisible ear bends to catch the breathing, 
and to wing it away and tell of it up high? or is it 
he whose prayers, it may be, are so elaborate and 
ntatious as to be troublesome to his neighbor? 
Is the true saint of the world the zealot of the past, 
who patterns and copies the t-crossings and the 
i-dottings, word for word and letter for letter? or the 
man and woman who know nothing about the letter, 
and care nothing about it; hungry only for the spirit, 
and for greater things to come? Are the saints 
they of the paint and toilet one day in the week ? or 
they without any paint or any toilet whatever? but 
who fear God and do righteousness from Sunday 
to Sunday, and from Monday to Monday, living and 
dying. 

Who are they that pray ! Such as carry their 
prayers in their pockets, or in their hearts? Men 
who retail them off as the work of a machine, or 
who hide them for the most part, not only in the 
closet, but in the deep-glowing fires of the heart? 
Men consumed with the passion of desire — men 
divinely frenzied for emancipation from darkness, for 
liberation and freedom from the thralls and restraints 
of time and sin, that they may be in the liberty- 



TNI CHRISTIAN. 95 

chime of the Divine thinking? Such soul-agony 
docs not perish; it is not cheap; it is not born all 

once; it comes as summer comes out of winter; it 
cornea as life comes out of death; developed from the 

sources of man's nature when touched by the life of 
the higher nature. 

Who really btlu lie who knows more creeds 

than you can count? he who makes more noise and 
trouble in the world about his orthodoxy than ever 
the Master did? and yet would be first to come under 
the impeachment of the chapter we read this morn- 
ing? or he who knows nothing about such thin 
and cares nothing about them; but is in a state of 
suffering sensibility lest his spirit lose its purity, or 
his heart be soiled or compromised by evil? Who 
really believes? He who takes the life of Christ into 
his soul? or he who only takes the history of Christ, 
and how men have thought about Christ in other 
days? Is the true believer the one who is the sub- 
ject of high and divine inspirations, so deep and 
profound that he cannot utter them and talk about 
them ? or he who is so loaded and clogged with the 
mere theories and opinions of men on the subject, 
that he has no scope for anything else? 

Who is really the Christian? Is it the punctilious, 
exact imitator of what is done and canonized and 
endorsed by other imperfect men ? or he who goes 
forth with life and strives, as a conscientious man, to 
do everything he does, and think everything that he 
thinks, as an upright, true, honorable son of an all- 
perfect Father, hoping never to be ashamed of his 



96 IMITATION AND DEVELOPMENT 

record in the great end? The real Christian! It is 
easy to symbolize virtue, to symbolize our graces, to 
say if we dress ill white it means so and so; if we 

dress in black it means so and so; if we do this, it 
means one thing; if we do that, it means another; if 
we read the drama and play the play, we acknowledge 
such graces and such virtues. It is easily done — 
very easily done. But to develop from the man him- 
self this grand drama of purity and grace; of beauty, 
and truth, and glory; bringing it right out of him as 
s arc brought from winter and ice — that is not 
so easy. There is a mighty difference ; one is develop- 
ment zxiA growth ; the other is imitation, copy, simulation. 

Having, then, touched these distinctions and illus- 
trations and applications, you have not failed, even of 
yourselves, to notice that we are in the midst of great 
fundamental matters ; that we have touched vital, es- 
sential ideas and principles. In the first place, one 
is never obliged to be a copyist; he is never obliged 
to be an imitator ; he is a free man, if he will use his 
freedom. Every man has an internal seed, a capacity 
of nature, a power, a competence, that may be de- 
veloped into a true man — I don't say without God; 
but he has that subjective element in his nature 
which can save him from a mere parody, a mere 
imitation. 

Then, when a man comes to a life of truth and 
self-development, he touches the heart and harmony 
of universal things ; all that lives; the grand uni- 
versal life of nature ; perfectness in God. Every 
man who comes into this true personal life is in 



AYA7.V VITAL d 97 

affiliation therewith. True progress lies here. How 
many arc there ever learning, and never able to 
me to acknowledge the truth ! This is the reason. 
They work externally; they work imvitally, in ma- 
chinery, in signs, patterns, symbols, impersonality 

Truth must be born through their experience ; th 
must have developed minds. Grand evolutions of 
God's thinking must come forth of them constantly. 

Then they will be ever learning, ever knowing more 
and more. 

And here, in this process of true personal develop- 
ment, we come to organize the life that is now y into 
the life that is to come. A life of imitation will leave 
its copy work behind; the copyist will go naked into 
another world, poor, blind, naked in himself, being 
nothing. What we plead for strikes the vital cords, 
strikes the great arterial circulations that knit the two 
lives into one ; and everything we do here rightly and 
divinely, shall last — we shall find it at the last day. 

A man who lives in his religion as a mere copyist, 

a mere echo of other thoughts, and other opinions, 

and other characteristics, will surely come to those 

exigencies in life, where he will be found wanting. 

At his own tribunal he will lack balance, poise and 

self-control. He may have thought he was a saint ; 

that he had deep trust in God ; that he knew where 

his stay and staff were ; but he will come to some 

great hour in which he will feel that he has been 

nothjng but an imitation. Whereas a man who 'a 

truly developed, unfolded in his nature, coming into 

these stressful hours, will find that the cords are all 
9 G 



98 IMITATION AND 1 WENT. 

taut; that the spars arc all firm ; that he has a stay 
and a balance in the storm. The deck may rock un- 
derneath him, but he is trimmed. The laws of the 
storm are for him. lie has ^rown personally, ex- 
perimentally. I [c has his allies in the great universal 
law of the perfectness of thin 

Such a man is somebody y instead of a sign of some- 
bod}-. Having taken God up unto him, he is more 
and more a true man. He is like a tree growing by 
the river-side ; his nurture comes from the sources of 
universal truth and life. History no longer holds 
him her vassal; history is not his prison; it is not 
his authority ; never his tyrant, she stands as his ad- 
monition ; his warning; his tutor; but his master 
never. One is his master, even He whom all history 
owns. Hope is no longer an echo of the past, but a 
bright glimmer from out of the future. Faith is a 
deep, well-settled trust in the order of things; an 
order that is unbroken as the wisdom of God. Trust 
is a confidence in God that he will never play false. 
Aspiration becomes a prophecy now as well as a 
yearning in man's nature; and salvation, nothing but 
a sublime evolution of man out of the still primal 
germ with which God seeded his nature, now fructified 
by a Divine nature. I am speaking, you perceive, of 
manhood; of perfected man; developed, disciplined, 
inspired, regenerated, broad, living ; of faith as a fact , 
or religion as a personal reality. Heaven will be 
finished selfhood; that finish that was ever heralded 
in the dream slumbers of creation and re-creation. 

So that, following religion through the economy 



Tin oo 

of a vital evolution instead of dead imitation, we 
h.i\ which is the planting of God in 

your nature, — regeneration is a good word for it, if 
you take the spiritual meaning of the word. If you 
hold to the process of this planting in its develop- 
ment, which is the summer growth of God in your 
soul, then you come to the eu<L which is the ripening 
rod to the fruits of character unto immortality. 

Thus we have set forth these distinctions; tli 
illustrations; these applications ; and these general 
co-ordinate principles. 

•w for the admonition. Be yourselves; first, be 
yourself; next, be yourself; and last, be yourself; 
God only being greater, as He is your helper and 
your counsel. 

Develop your nature; don't leave that to decay, 
die and rot, while you are busy, making great ado 
about the working of things on the other side ; de- 
velop your meuihood and ivomanhood ; stir up your 
soul to life and fire down at the very germ, and 
quicken that. God is right here to help you. Un- 
fold the God - given capacities within. You have 
such capacities. They are in God's image. Unfold 
them; make them larger, broader and broader; don't 
be satisfied because you think you are converted, 
and " saved." You are saved only so far as you are 
unfolded. A man would be foolish to think that be- 
cause the tree has sprouted in the acorn, such is the 
end of the matter. Most likely the germ will die ; 
it must die if it be not permitted to go on and fulfil 
the scale of its economy. So unfold this capacity 



IOO IMITATION AND DEV VT 

of mind, of heart, of reason, of memory, of h 
of aspiration ; and as these capacities unfold, fill them 
with the canti nts I himself. Let I [im be poured 

into tli ipty cups of your nature. When the 

LClties for these flowers before us were opened, 
God came down and filled them ; therefore they are 
not sham ; God is in that flower as in your nature; 
as in the developed and broken heart ; divinity there 
for beautiful ends. I use the illustration for the sake 
lying that this expansion, and developed capacity 
of your human nature, must be filled from the contents 
of the Divine nature. That makes you a reality, your 
true self, and not a mere copy or sign of something. 
Then your life shall not wither however severe the 
drought ; and your root shall not perish however chill 
the winter. Then life itself will be a sublime elo- 
quence, your very presence in the world being as the 
tongue of God, speaking high and beautiful things; 
and death, when he shall come, will be only a kind 
of caesura! pause, where the last mortal paragraph 
vnds and the immortal begins in this sublime utter- 
ance, which is yourself proclaiming the glory of 
God. Be yourself, then, and not another. Be en- 
tirely real, and true, and positive; be no make- 
believe, but a mighty faith and fact in your own per- 
gonal right and estate ; and then you yourself shall 
be a new Word of God, vitally and divinely spoken. 
Modern Jews of Jerusalem have, at the west side 
of the Temple, what they call a '* wailing place* 1 
where the\- go ever)' Friday afternoon about three 
o'clock, and bewail the death of their nation; the 



UNFOLD ioi 

parturc of its glory; the silen< • of its tempi 

O how much better would it be for that degraded 
people to turn away from the past toward the future, 
and let their ciy be to God for the grandeur and 
glory of temples that arc coming, by virtue of which 
the glory that was shall be nothing. The Christ and 
glory that they and we want, are ahead ; something 
to be expected ; and not what we hold in our memory. 
The Christ, the Gospel, the glory that we all want, 
i^ the coming finished self, unfolded from the primal 

rm of such infolded possibility as God wrapped up 
in the beginning of our existence. Men love to think 
of I leaven as a garden, a paradise — beautiful figure 
indeed. That garden is to be just where it now is, 
in your own nature; your own nature divinely de- 
veloped and perfected. Why, then, go about pick- 
ing up leaves from other gardens ; from other men's 
experience ; from past ages, when your own is full of 
divine buds and germs, if you only let them up into 
life and sunshine waiting to greet them and make 
them a garden immortal in the hereafter? 

Development, then, means inspiration as well as 
aspiration ; it means taking in divineness, breathing 
in air and summer as well as unfolding your native 
capacities. This is what we are pleading for. Be 
true, therefore, to this economy of the divine hus- 
bandry ; be true to the vocation of your nature. 
Then, when the frescoes and the signs and the imi- 
tations are all done, and there is no Jew outwardly, 
you shall be beautiful; you shall be abiding in this 
state as God himself. 
9* 



VI. 

CHARITY. 

And n th faith y hope % charity — these 

three; but the greatest of these is charity, 
I Corinthians xiii. 13. 

IN the exquisitely beautiful and tender delineations 
of this thirteenth chapter, we have the master- 
piece of Paul. For depth of insight, for profound- 
ness of philosophy, for comprehensiveness of scope 
and intent, for gentleness of feeling, for vital per- 
vasiveness of spiritual power, and fulness of state- 
ment as to the sum and substance of Christ and His 
religion, this chapter is not only unsurpassed by 
anything that Paul wrote, but unequalled by anything 
found among the writers of the Old Testament, or 
where in the New. 

Here the heart of Christianity is purposely un- 
veiled; the portrait of what the religion of Christ 
can make in human character, is presented inten- 
tionally ; the divinity of the Christian religion, as it 
manifests itself in the working of the human soul, is 
the point of the painter's pencil. God's power in 
transforming and saving man, may be here seen in 
living, concrete fact. 

In the previous chapter, the spiritual gifts and 

onal endowments best suited to promote the 

welfare of religion and the Church are pointed out. 

102 



THE h IO^ 

They are mentioned as ton knowledge, the 

of healing, the power I rn, the power to w 

miracles, the gift of prophecy, the power of faith, 
skill in interpretation, and, at last, apostleship it 

We have it in such words as these: "To on 
given the word of wisdom; to another knowled 
to another faith; to another healing; to another 
miracles ; to another prophecy ; to another tongues ; 
to another interpretation of tongues ; all by the 
same spirit." The chapter closes, after enumerating 
the gifts of healing, the gifts of interpretation, the 
gifts of miracles, and of faith, with the admonition, 
11 Covet the best gifts;" and then, at the end of that, 
is added, " I show unto you a more excellent way." 
That way is detailed in the chapter following. 

" What ! " we are ready to exclaim from our edu- 
cation, from our associations from the very cradle up 
to manly and womanly life — " what I is it possible 
that there can be anything more excellent than /#*///, 
than hope, than miracles, than prophesying, and all 
the other spiritual gifts, not omitting apostleship 
itself?" Yes, there is something more excellent 
than any, or all. It is Charity. Its superior excel- 
lence is indicated after this fashion: " Though I 
speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
have not charity, I am as sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy and 
understand all mysteries, all knowledge, and though 
I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, 
and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I 
distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and though 



104 \j:itv. 

ire my body to be burned, and have not charity, 
it profiteth me nothing" All nothing! nothing! 
sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, all. Why? 
For u charity never faileth; whether there be p 
phecies, they shall (ail ; tongues, they shall cease; 
knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in 
part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which 
is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be 
done away." 

Here is something surpassing all other graces and 
gifts, in that it never fails. Here is something which, 
in the fading presence of all other brilliance and 
power, is perennial in its thrift and growth. Here 
is a truth and grace which, while earthy surface and 
mere lip accomplishments are fading, ebbing into 
the last hue and cadence, shall be waxing stronger 
and stronger, from childhood to manhood, from 
manhood to angelhood, until at last it shall shine as 
the face of God in the conscious fullness of com- 
pleted 

Last Sunday we tried to answer the question: 
What is it to be a Christian ? and did not dare go 
far from the authority of Christ. Therefore we said: 
"He is a Christian, or she is, who lives the life thai 
Christ lived* 1 That doctrine is rejected, we know, to 
some extent ; but when we must go among conflict- 
ing opinions, and take the risk of making our stand 
where matters are disputed, I think it is always best 
to hang upon the lips that spake as never man Spake, 
and so trust the issue. Therefore I answered the 
question as I did. Here is the same question an- 



io5 

swered in another form. Christ told men how to 

live. Paul held up a specimen of what man is who 

as Christ directed We do not study this 

matter, this actual, living part of religion, as we 
should. We find ourselves hiding away in theory, 

covering ourselves up in doctrine, or what wc call 
our beliefs or faiths, so far from real life often that 
if our beliefs were contagious our lives would be 
sea rcel\- in dang 

And I seem to see a reason for this. I don't 
blame myself altogether ; I don't blame men gen- 
erally for being in this position. Who of us does not 
reflect the training, the manners, the habits of thought 
inherited in our first lessons? These matters 
come upon us unconsciously ; therefore, the fact that 
we rule out of our religion so much practical life and 
godliness, does not perplex me, for I seem to see a 
reason for it, and in part an apology. 

Notice that the religion and faith which we call 
Protestant has, from the first, left this whole matter 
of charity quite too much out of its doctrines. We 
remember that the primal enunciation of the Refor- 
mation was u salvation by faith alone!' That grand 
movement was constructed on military principles. 
Opposition to what was assumed to be wrong in the 
past, was its central force and purpose. The move- 
ment contemplated arrest of error more than devel- 
opment of truth. It was a protest, as the name im- 
plies. There come periods in the world when just 
this sort of work is necessary. 

One error the Protestant Reformation set itself to 



106 CHARITY. 

correct, was that of supererogatory service. The re- 
form under Luther could not endorse the idea that 
a man can work an extra credit mark, so that by 
virtue of that extra righteousness in service he may 

sometimes offset an indulgence. So the whole force 
of the movement set itself against that idea, and said : 
" No, not by extra service, but by faith alone does 
man win Divine favor." Then, again, the Protestant 
movement set itself to fight against what is called 
the abuse of charity. Almsgiving had become a 
might}' institution ; and we Protestants are free to 
say, or ought to be, that in the dispensations of 
charity in the forms of almsgiving, looking after the 
poor and needy, succoring and uplifting the down- 
fallen, the Catholic Church for centuries did a work 
that should put every Protestant face to the blush. 
But then we know that all men are alike, especially 
as seen in the fact that no man or institution can 
bear perpetual prosperity without running into dan- 
gerous degeneracy. Almsgiving became a means 
of wealth and power ; or, to put it in better phrase, a 
grand system of collection for investment. Against 
that the new movement protested. Faith was the 
principle run up on every Protestant flag; nothing 
but faith, faith untarnished by works. And then 
Protestantism said there was a great deal of super- 
stition lingering in the Church. It had risen to colos- 
sal dimensions; it had put its mighty grasp upon 
the vitals of Christ. That is what Protestantism pro- 
ud to set itself to correct; superstition coming 
from Paganism; lingering shadows of it coming 
down from an elder dispensation. 



77/ 

X >w, it is never any use to unhorse a wrong ri 
and then, in leaping to the saddle, leap o i the 

other side; for you are - much as your ant, 

nist Protestantism did it. This very day ^>he is 
quite as deficient in charity and humanity as the 
Catholu were in spirituality and divinity. Sal- 

n by faith alone rang out the thesis of the great 
Reformer ; and the reverberations and echoes there- >f 
fill the mountains and valleys of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Salvation by faith alone — and this is just 
as much an error and superstition with Protestants, 
as was salvation by works alone with Catholics. 
Paul, of all apostles and teachers, is cited as author- 
ity for this faith-scheme. Paul was, indeed, in a very 
important sense, the Protestant of his day. His first 
movement and grand work was a protest against the 
errors of a former dispensation; and yet, if you will 
notice, when Paul comes to speak for himself on this 
very point of faith, what does he say? This, pre- 
cisely: " There is something as much greater than 
faith in the matter of religion, as faith is greater than 
sight." There is something as much more impor- 
tant than faith, as truth and reality in religion are 
superior to u sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." 
When Paul comes to speak for himself, his grand 
word is : " Though you have faith that may remove 
mountains ; nay, though you give your body to be 
burned," it is all talk, it is all u nothing" Nothing 
is the word he uses. Unless this foremost and fun- 
damental grace impassion your soul, martyrdom and 
faith are not saviors at all. 



108 CHARITY. 

Paul, by the interpretations of men, has evidently 
been perverted. Most unmistakably has he been 
misinterpreted; but that is not singular. We know, 
f«»r example, how Paul has been set against James, 
and James against Paul ; and how much sweat of 
rhetoric and lumber of logic have been spent as if 
they needed reconciling. It is easy to set up men 
of straw and then shoot them down. What is effected 
when you have reconciled James and Paul ? Nothing ; 
the\- were never at variance in their theology. Just 
so Paul has been set against himself. The polemics 
did it; and after they had professed to solve the diffi- 
culty which they had created, they only left the 
matter just where they found it. When this great 
faith-apostle is permitted to stand before the com- 
mentators and speak far himself \ as he spoke before 
Agrippa in that personal vindication, what does he 
say? This, indeed: Faith is great and might}', 
and enters as a force into salvation ; hope is great 
and might}', and enters as a force into salvation. 
" By faith ye are saved;" "by hope ye are saved;" 
and yet there is a greater than faith, or hope, or 
death itself, and that greater is — Charity. They 
are put in the background by him when he speaks 
for himself, while this comes to the front; and who 
shall say Paul is not more competent to speak for 
himself than we are to speak for him? 

Protestantism, then, the reformation movement of 

three centuries ago, seeing what was to be done, 

seized the reins of infallibility from the hands of the 

and mounted the chariot of infallibility itself. 



PAUVS DOCTRINE. 109 

Then the grand old fighters, the stalwart theo 
leaden and polemics of that day, putting their own 
interpretation upon Paul instead of taking Paul's in- 

retation, lifted their flag and started their cam- 

11. The whole movement was constructed on 

the polemic system, opposing and protesting against 

something assumed to be wrong. Instead of bowing 
to Paul as primary authority on the matter upon 
which he speaks, Paul was compelled to bow to the 
reformers ; so that we in our day have come to read, 
a- they did, this greatest of Apostles through the 
spectacles of other parties, instead of reading and 
judging of those parties through the eyes of Paul 
himself. And this is about the whole story of salva- 
tion by faith alone. No wonder that St. James said, 
"Faith alone is like a body without a soul, dead;" 
and dared to boast a little, constructively, in saying, 
44 Show me thy faith without works, and I will show 
you my faith by my works." He did not discard 
faith, but he demanded that it should be living and 
productive. No wonder that Paul himself said after- 
wards, when handling religion in its practical, living 
form, " Work out your own salvation with fear and 
trembling; this God -power which is love -power 
working in you to will and to do." That is the 
motive, the inspiration, the why and the wherefore 
of the whole. 

In that, Paul but repeats Jesus Christ himself. 
Christ told men how to live; Paul tells them what 
they will do, how they will appear, the fruits they will 

yield, if they do live as Christ directed. And here 
10 



HO CHARITY. 

the two, Paul and Christ, come to oneness. The 
man of Tarsus and the man of Nazareth are one in 

spirit, in purpose, in result. 

Jesus Christ said, when on earth, "A new com- 
mandment I give unto you, that ye love one an- 
other;" and on another occasion, putting it in a 
different form, He summed up all the law and the 
Prophets, the whole duty of man, in this one exercise 
of love or charity — toward God primarily, toward 
others as ourselves. The meaning of this word 
charity is simply Love. That is God's name in the 
Bible, and that is His nature there declared. "God 
is love," says the Book. This is the mission of 
Jesus Christ to our world. This is His Gospel of 
salvation. God Himself, who is love, so exercised 
His Godhood, that He sent this power of salvation 
in Christ into the world ; and because He first loved 
us, the argument runs, we love Him; Divine love 
propagating itself in human love. Charity, accord- 
ing to this, is the very seed and root of all the graces 
and all final harmonious thinking. The charity of 
Paul is the love-power of God ; the love-power of 
God is the incarnation of Christ; and Christly men 
are the fruitage and the trophies of this power. 

Here then stand the mighty three, Faith, Hope, 
CHARITY J Faith grasping all coming possibilities; 
J lope throttling the old giant Despair; and Charity 
breeding in human nature the Divine nature. Hope 
is might}-; her lamp shall never be extinguished. 
Faith is great and grand; she shall live forever. 
These three are one in harmony and purpose, and 
the three shall reign for evermore. But the kingly 






/>. Til 

'.■lory of this trinity, you will ve, is dot Faith; 

it i- not Hope; it is Charity. This wears the crown, 
speaks raul, speaking for himself. 

Follow, therefore, after charity. This is the more 
excellent way; this the kingly and queenly gift to 
he coveted; without this all other gifts are vain talk 
and specious disgui Here is the theology of 

Christ, Paul and God, according to the New T< 
ment; and here their religion. "Tongues shall 
oease ;" " Knowledge shall vanish away ;" the musical 
syllables of time shall ebb to silence; the crumbling 
foot-rest of the hour shall trickle from Faith; but 
there is something that is abiding, something that is 
lasting, something that is unfading. Men may have 
faith that shall "remove mountains," which is in- 
tended to be the mightiest and most exhaustive 
statement or conception of faith. Men may add 
thereto their own bodies to be burned; and after 
they have done it — what? Martyrdom itself, to- 
gether with this mightiest faith, is nothing'. Men 
may know all mysteries; they may believe in and 
work all miracles ; they may turn true or false 
prophets, and speak like angels ; yet without this 
God-name and God-nature in their religion, they are 
notliuig. 

This is the undeniable testimony of him whom 
men have vaunted as authority for salvation by faith 
alone ; a testimony as explicit as it is conclusive, and 
which makes Faith, when compared with the great- 
ness of Charitv, fade and vanish into nothing ! 

Are the old superstitions all dead ? Is Paul an 
infidel? Is the religion of Jesus a worthless rag? 



VII. 



CHARACTERISTIC S ( >/ r MODERN Tlh u GUT. 

The mot say unto the hand y I 

the head to the feet, I have no need 
■on. — i Corinthians \ii. 21. 

THE body is a system of related parts, organs, 
and functions. The eye is helped by the hand, 
and the head by the feet. Stomach, lungs and heart 
work together; so do bones, nerves and muscles. 
The whole is a beauteous unit}' made up from great 
diversity; strong and balanced on the principle of 
interdependence and supplemental adaptation. 

The same is true of mind as of body. Memory, 

judgment, love, sorrow, reason, will, worship, work 

ther in unity, each helping to complete the other. 

So, also, in the whole realm of truth. Ideas are 

related, supplementary, interdependently. Goodness 

- with wisdom, and beaut\' with both. Science, 

faith, art, virtue, beneficence, are a brotherhood. 

Each has need of the other and of the whole. 

A recent vigorous Christian writer of Britain penned 
this incisive thought : " No man can become a true 
theologian by the perusal of works that are only 
,ical," — a truth wonderfully in harmony with 
tlie principle of the text. And a careful meditation 
on that truth by us all, would be a great deal better, 

doubtless, than the >crmon you will hear this morn- 

112 



FA 1 13 

In its little mustard- seed is a glory that can 

fill all the ns of life, 

This truth applies not only to theologians and to 
. but to all teachers and all subjects. 

Would a man be a philosopher? It won't do to 
begin and caul with Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, or 
Kant. He must be not only of the sensational 
school, but must know the ideal school as well; and 
not Stopping there, he must acquaint himself with 
the great sceptical school ; mastering that, he will 
be ready to pass into the mystic order of thought; 
and thence finally on to the grand eclectic method, 
wherein he will stand balanced, master of what has 
been, candidate for what may be. 

Would a man become proficient in science? He 
must remember that astronomy alone cannot make 
him so. Astronomy is dependent upon mathematics. 
The science of botany is full of beauty as well as use ; 
but it is intimately connected with and dependent 
upon the science of chemistry. The birds of the air, 
the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea, sub- 
sist upon the great economy of organized matter. 
If you would understand the vegetable kingdom, 
you must go down into the mineral kingdom, and 
catch the whispers through which the latter talks to 
the former, and understand somewhat the terms of 
amity through which they hold intercourse. The 
eye and the hand, the head and the foot, are not in- 
dependent anywhere. 

Are you an artist ? You are not so because you 

can build a house, a barn or a temple. You are so, 
10* II 



114 CHARAi A'.Y THOUGHT. 

if at all, because you possess art % — or, rather, art 

you. You must study this wonder in its 
>\vships. You will build a better house if you 
understand sculpture; and chisel better if you can 
paint; and sing better if you can do all the rest, 
whether in form, color, tone, thought or passion. 
You must know the great world of beauty in it 
and its laws as they stand related to the world of 
sense and the laws of expression. Then you can do 
anything that needs to be done. 

The statesman is not such because he understands 
the labyrinths of diplomacy, or has his hobby in 
slative halls or cabinets. He is so because he 
understands not only the constitution, the code and 
the policy of his own country, but because he is well 
versed and broadly read in the history of social organ- 
ization and action. He must know monarch)', the 
genius of despotism, patriarch)-, aristocracy, as well 
as democracy ; all forms of government and how 
the\- came to be — the providential necessity of them. 

The lawyer wants familiarity with not only his 
codes and precedents, and rules of evidence and 
pleading, but he needs also to know men, the code 
of motives, the internal statutes of equity, the consti- 
tution and precedents of human nature, together 
with long ranges of history and philosophy. 

The physician must be skilful in physiology and 
the materia mediea ; he must be facile in diagnosis, 
prognosis, and clinics. Hut it won't do for him to 
Stop there. He must be more comprehensive, or he 
will kill and cure by the same rule. He needs to 



WH i i 5 

know path reling and of thinking ; he must 

be a detective of moral symptoms; he must have 

ht inb piritua] coloring and weather of the 

soul, and know how to modify and control this subtle 

of the sick-room, if lie would be master ol 
the issues of life and death. 

And the preacher needs to he best furnished of 
all. If what is said of him be true, namely, that his 
themes are the highest, his responsibilities the 
greatest, then should he be most comprehensive 
and ample in his furnishing. He needs to be not 
only an " earthen vessel " but a fountain if possible; 
a theologian not only of the azoic period, but of the 
age of living men; not simply a mnemonic, a guant 
pilgrim with his basket full of relics and charms, 
but an inspired prophet with the whole counsel of 
God. He must know not only the technics of his 
sect-school, denomination and church, he must also 
know the minds and characters of men as they stand 
recorded in general history and general literature. 
He must know not only what he himself thinks, but 
what his neighbor thinks ; cand be as patient under 
his thought as under his own. He must know not 
only his specific religion, but, if he be a Christian, he 
must know all other religions. The true teacher 
must study them ; he must find what truth there is 
in them ; how they came to be, and to be when and 
what they were and are. He has no right to shut 
his eyes, and then stone the Mohammedan, or the 
Jew by whose Scriptures he also swears. He has no 
right to refuse to read by the light of the proximate 



I l6 ( S OF MODEKN THOUGHT. 

noon of the West, the old religions of the East, in 
any of their diverse forms or powers, whether in 

pt, India, or Persia. The men there were and 
are his brothers, differing in their origin, constitution, 
and wants in no respect from himself. The differ- 
ences are external, accidental, non-essential, and he 
cannot be a wise teacher who refuses to know the 
why and the wherefore of these things. 

And the true theologian should be wide and 
luminous in the world of science as well as letters. 
Science is God's divine law in nature. His first 
Bible was not this, but that — two volumes on the 
same subject. They go together ; and he who cannot 
accept this truth is no fit leader for the blind, or even 
for those who have vision. The theological teacher 
OlUSt be learned, so far as he can be, in the divinity 
of God's thoughts, wherever and however he has 
spoken them, whether in the Bible, creation, provi- 
dence, or the human soul. If he would indite and 
perpetuate a theology that is worth anything, that 
will be remembered a day after he is done, he must 
give it no provincial accent, but make it speak in a 
language universal as God. Otherwise one had 
better be in counting-rooms, on commercial wharves, 
bridging oceans, building cities, wherein men do 

atly and truly. 

Indeed, it would be well if all preachers would 
Study more of the divinity o( actual life, know men 
and the world they live in, We all know at what a 
discount the pulpit stands in practical wisdom, a 
knowledge u[ affairs. We would hardly be trusted 



1 17 

to di eck, if we had the right The world 

ild not pick us out to manage railn ngineer 

commercial enterprises, solve problems 
political economy, and make laws for the regulation 

and institutions. And yet wc ought to know 
men in their life and action, because here their char- 
acters are made ; motives and principles come into 
; life comes to success or failure. For life lived 

and done in the body and the reasons thereof, and 
for nothing else, shall we he judged. 

The minister and theologian should know the 
pathology of mind and heart in the concrete ; 
what human sickness is in the moral and spiritual 
e, and how it is to be cured. Charms, relics, 
mystic spells, medicine - men, rain -makers, cloud- 
compellers will not do it. The hurt of the mind and 
heart is to be healed by generating underneath the 
wound what is right and pure and true, till all be full 
of health. A preacher will preach a better sermon 
for having large secular knowledge, just as a shoe- 
maker will make better shoes if he has studied 
anatomy for the balance and pose of the human 
form ; just as a dressmaker will make a better fit 
and a better costume, on hygienic principles, if she 
has studied the physiology of her sex ; or a black- 
smith make a better bolt, knowing perfectly the 
expanding and contracting forces of heat and cold 
on iron. A laborer will sleep better in the night if 
he has earned a good conscience during the day, 
and understands ventilation and the electric currents 
of earth and atmosphere. A Christian will pray a 



l lS CHAR §RN THOUGHT. 

better if he has studied the value of pure 

air, and warm sunshine, and clean water, and good 

digestion — Tor prayers are not worth much that 

:n up out of the diseased results of violated law. 

'riie\- arc not healthy. All things, all laws, all divine 

function thcr — head, heart, hand — through 

and through the world. 

These remarks arc preliminary; and their value 
lies in the fact that they more easily raise, and give 

ture to, what is more especially my subject; 
which is, the notice of some of the leading charac- 
teristics and tendencies of modern thought I will 
mention four: Breadth, Consistency, Depth, Unity. 

First, Bread tli. You cannot talk with a man five 
minutes — if he is the kind of man you like to talk 
with — without perceiving how his mind is shooting 
out in almost every direction, upon almost every sub- 
ject; but especially on subjects related to his more 
immediate interest. He wants to know not only 
what he docs know of the matter, but also what he 
does not know. He is under the inspiration of one 
of the great characteristics of modern intelligence, 
namely, the great truth, that all things are related. 
He does not know that which he assumes to know, 
until he understands the boundaries of it, what lies 
n xt to it, and determines it to be what it is. The 
moment a man feels the contagion of this expansive- 
ness, has caught the grand sympathy of related truths, 
he begins to think truly; and thinks as never before. 
There c at once more breadth and scope to him. 

Perhaps not more depth as well, but certainly more 



mental expansion; a >n f tl rk- 

ing of all idea- and of th d truths that m 

do know, than ever b \nd it is this which 

ma] ' practical men, nun of finer executive 

ability. Compared with a hundred ne 

man can do the work of fifty, or of a thousand, 
simply because of this broader. eneralizing and 

stematizing tendency and order of thinking. This 
of the con : unction-points among related 
ideas, is the seed of all mental enlargement. 

condly, this is a day in which men not only see 
truth in its relation-, but also in its correlations, h 
one truth is fraternal and necessary to another. They 

grin to see as never before that ideas go in pair 
that they go in families. There is parent and off- 
spring, brother and sister. Ideas go in communities. 
A whole colony of truths will sometimes leap into 
a man's mind like inspiration, simply because he is 
in this atmosphere, or the life of this law ; not only 
of the relations of things, but of their correlations, 
their fellowship, their mutuality. That kind of 
thought is very marked in the thinking world to- 
day ; it rules men of science ; it governs the true in- 
terpreter of God anywhere and ever\'where. 

In the third place, notwithstanding the super- 
ficiality of the world, men are to-day more radical 
than ever. They go more to the root of things; 
send down into the darkness peering questions, that 
do not come back until they bring answers. What 
men want to know is, the foundations of things ; the 
unquestioned certitudes in which this truth or that 



120 CHARA OF MODERN THOUGHT. 

idea stands; the very root and principle of things. 

Men are asking such questions as never before; and 
that is one reason why they do not stop at pheno- 
mena, declining to accept as finality the mere sign 
or signal thrown up as a provisional expediency for 

a time. They must go deeper, are not willing to 

rest as rational beings, until the}' have touched the 

root of the matter. A true radicalism is one of the 
finest signs of the times; a radicalism which is born 
of the brain, not of the stomach or the liver; an in- 
stinct for truth, audacious, veracious, persistent, finely 
mannered, finely balanced ; which sings and paints 
and aspires, but never scoffs, never pulls down, never 
uproots. If it chance to come upon some old snag 
of error, it will be less apt to raise issue with it, than 
to plant a seed of truth still deeper, and cultivate that 
till the new supersede the old and take possession 
of the field. In the divine order, evil is always over- 
come by good. 

Finally, Unity. The yearning of men to-day is 
unspeakable for this. Wherever it finds a truth, here 
or there, whether it be a blooming thing of beauty 
for the hour, a glowing, throbbing pulse in the sky, 
or a hieroglyphic down deep in the earth, anywhere, 
everywhere, the great yearning restless asking is, 
I low do these stand related ? What is their common 
origin? How do they all consist, and what is the 
high point of view from which the whole is seen as 
i >ne grand, beautiful harmony ? Some men say, there 
is ,i God from whose standpoint all this may be be- 
held, and from whom the whole conception sprang. 



THE SWAY ?£ 121 

Ol ay the plan originated itself. But the 

truth >t.uu!s, in any case, of this related order m\k\ 

harmony of thill This oneness which the mind 

and heart yearn for, is an inborn instinct, a necessity 

rational intelligence. To think it is to affirm it 
and obey it. Men will not accept anything in th< 
days, until they see in an intelligent way how it stands 
in relation to, and in consistency with, this grand idea 
o[ integral wholeness. When that is seen, the new 
truth is welcomed as a brother from the same home 
and parentage. Men give it their right hand heartily. 

Breadttiy ( Consistency \ Depth, Unity ; these are charac- 
teristics and tendencies of all live thinking to-day. 

.And yet, divine as all this evidently is, there are 
always some to break faith with it. Let a truth of 
nature be introduced to a truth in religion, a truth 
learned from the flower be put alongside a truth 
learned from this Book, and their harmony, fellow- 
ship and brotherhood be spoken of as of children 
of the same Father, and not a few arc disturbed, 
possibly alarmed. Religion seems contradicted, im- 
periled, profaned. The reason is, they have never 
thought broadly; they have not been in the habit 
of contemplating ideas in their relations to each 
other. They are somehow under the sway of old 
falsehoods, that matter is evil, that nature and the 
world generally belong to the Devil because they 
are his work. Whereas, when they find out the 
truth, all these are as divine as the Maker that actu- 
ally made them. All are one, and for one grand 
end working together. When our faith takes the 
ii 



122 CHARA THOUGHT. 

truth in, our faith IS increased. When our prayers 
sweep this scale, they not only bring US nearer to 

God, but send pulsations through all the life of 

heaven. When our faith stretches out to the extent 
that it may gather in all truth, then we shall begin to 

live a true religious life. So far as faith and truth are 
concerned, we begin to be saved. Then, enthroning 

God over all, because lie made all and is in all, en- 
folding all, we shall not be terrified even if we over- 
hear prayers from bendingones before the great Altar 
of the skies, from worshipers hidden away in the inner 
cloisters of Nature herself, from the mute but rever- 
ent lip of all tilings. On the contrary, we shall be 
anxious to combine their fervor and inspiration with 
our own, and chime all such vibrations of truth into 
accordance with our own wants and aspirations. 

Nowhere do these truths apply more fully than to 
religion of course. The characteristics and tenden- 

of thought to-day have consciously more to do 
with religion than any other one subject. The whole 
Christian man is not only anxious to know, and to 
carry out his own personal convictions, but he is in- 

ted that his neighbor shall also do the same. 
But because lie has gotten the grand idea of this 
related fellowship of all truth, he does not expect to 
be damaged by the success of his neighbor's thought; 
lie expects rather to be lifted and supplemented 
thereby. He is never troubled because there is an- 
other denomination in the world, another church- 
fold of different name from his own, or a different 
way of theological thinking. He rejoices therein. 



And yet there arc thousands withering and shriv- 
elling up to-day be< >th, they think it 
w i i> out of Judea and the Bible for God, 

mehow or other they stick in the letter and hark 
Christianity, regardless of root or fruit. Many 
there oi this kind. Nevertheless, it stands true 
that all through the world, ever since man existed, 
>d has never been without his witnesses, never 
been without his worshipers. The Christian's busi- 
nes illy if he be a Christian teacher, is, to 

study not only Christianity in denominations and in 
history, but to study the religious nature of man; to 
study that mighty sentiment, that wondrous function 
in human nature, as it has manifested itself all 
through time. If I, as a teacher, am not ready to do 
that, I had better be doing something else. In place 
of bringing before you the obsolete refrains of things 
that have had their day, won their victories, and gone 
to their urns and epitaphs, — of glory, if you please, 
we must strike for breadth and advancement, letting 
our thoughts go out fraternally everywhere, to every 
brother. 

And we must not say that he is not our brother, 
because he is of a different latitude and longitude; 
of a different religion, worshiping a different exter- 
nal God. Do we not all know that we make our 
own God, every one of us? The Ethiopian makes 
his black ; the Greek makes his beautiful and sen- 
suous ; the Egyptian made his of stone and night. 
Every man makes his God according to himself. 
He issues a high edition of himself — I am speaking 



124 CHARAd ERN THOUGHT. 

of his conception of God, of course. When shall we 
learn that these conceptions are not God himself — dis- 
solving, melting away, behind which is the one ever- 
lasting true God, coming out more and more into 
revelation, just like the hidden statue in the marble. 
From the first day's chipping you would not know 

what the block was to be, even as you would not 
know the Christian God through the wooden, stone 
and iron devices of Him among other nations and 
ag< 

But the true God is coming out through light, 
through reason, through intelligence, through virtue, 
more and more. And I don't want to stop Him; 
I don't propose to arrest this coming of a better con- 
ception of God into the human soul, saying thus far 
and no farther. Though it might be easier to get 
along with religion by taking it for granted that God 
is known as much as 1 le can be, and religion is all 
finished at our hands, we having nothing to do but 
to believe it. Still the assumption would be fatal. 
The theologian, the religious teacher now, must 
flavor what he knows from the universal scale of 
what can be known. He will be better furnished 
for his work through the teaching and culture of 
general literature, than by gathering all he can get 
from the technicalities, special schools and theologies 
of men, and staying shut up there. 

What religious teachers, and religious pupils — 
what nun of all classes and positions to-day want, 
is broad, general life-culture. The Christian now 
should be broadly read, broadly-thoughted ; he can- 



I 2 5 

same catechism that on rved 

him; he cannot live on the sam 1 Forever, 

ther borrowed thought nor tin- signs of thought 

can bring him thrift; he must break away and think 
for himself; must harness himself up in fundamental, 
universal principles, and live in the inspired con 
sciousness of the essential harmony and divine unity 
of all truth. 

Then he will be balanced ; there will be no danger 
of his becoming a fanatic ; the more radical he is, 
more truly conservative will he be. In a word, re- 
>n, whether as existing in the simple, sweet graces 
of virtue and character, or the heavier statements of 
theological thought, will be a living power. Toward 
such a power the tendencies are stronger to-day 
than ever. 

A Christian cannot pass off his professions for his 
character as once he could. He does not stand at a 
premium for any public or private trust where ca- 
pacity and integrity are required, simply because he 
is the member of a church. He ought to. And I 
trust there is to be a new departure in this matter. 
I want to see the time, and it should be right here 
now, when the fact that a man professes to preach 
the Gospel, or belong to a Gospel church or a Gospel 
relation, will be a certificate that he will not 
tell an untruth; that he will not cheat; that he will 
not steal his neighbor's gold or reputation; that he 
will not plaster himself all over with the command- 
ments of Christ, and then violate their spirit from 
sun to sun. It is a broad satire, even now, for Chris- 
ii* 



126 CHARACTER * OF M THOUGHT. 

tians to prove their orthodoxy by saying, " I do not 
trust to good works for my salvation ; salvation is a 
matter to be looked after by another." - Such testi- 
mony is usually superfluous. But the time will come 

when such a confession of faith will be classed with 
holy water and the blood of bulls. 

What men need now is to be right and truthful ; 
in sympathy with God wherever He has spoken or 
made a sign of Himself; arrayed in a panoply of 
everlasting truth, beauty, purity and blessedness. 
I iocs a man really live? What is he to do with his 
life ? If he die shall he live again ? These are great 
questions ; none greater. For the life to come will 
take care of itself; it is nothing but the blossoming 
of the seed we plant here. Our anxiety is to be all 
here. 

There is a special significance in such thoughts, 
from the fact that to-day there is a mingling of all 
nation^, religions, peoples and races of the earth, as 
r before. In this broad commingling and fel- 
lowship we need to have keen insight, the detective 
faculty, to discern what truth they all have. Old 
walls are broken down; restrictions are removed; 
and there is a mighty rush of life, a mighty inter- 
mingling of diversities; and there is no way of har- 
monizing them but by striking for the universal 
truth that underlies all life, and holding to that as 
the orchestra holds to the key. Accidents, provin- 
cialisms, mere local and temporal matters, are to go 
(< -r nothin 

And this is especial 1)' true of our own country. 



WORK Hi-. PULPa i 27 

t our immediate community. Tli 
man of us alive to-day, if the old 
autli ' plan were acted upon, namely, of burning 

a man for differing in opinion from another. But 
thanks to improvement, that is not sound doctrine 
now. Religious thought in our day is asserting and 
maintaining true liberty. Theology is enlarging so 

as to include all related truths of science. If Chris- 
tianity is to lead the world, she must drop her old 
provincialisms; she must drop her old " shibboleths," 
and stand on her everlasting, fundamental, universal 
principles. She is to shake out each wrinkled fold 
of her great banner, and let every stripe and star 
flash in the sun. He who refuses all this, does not 
comprehend the spirit of Christianity or his day. 
The spirit of Christianity holds just this breadth, 
depth, harmony, and oneness. Its spirit, I say, not 
its letter; not its external history; not its phenomena. 
Those things are fleeting, temporal; they are dead; 
they die in their birth, many of them. 

A Christian church in the better day to come, will 
something more than an organized enterprise to 
extend the church-roll of membership, or to secure 
an affluent exchequer for charity and other disburse- 
ments. The bankers, merchants, the social and fra- 
ternal guilds, will beat us out and out in such mat- 
ters. As to things instrumental and accidental to a 
good, vigorous, working policy, we all understand 
that. They are a power and necessity in their place. 
But they are only the coal and the ropes and the 
rigging on board the ships, and not the ships them- 
selves, nor their cargoes, nor their destinations. If 



128 CHARAC'a ' MODER HT. 

we think differently, we shall only decay at the 

wharf, however splendidly appointed. 

The church has a great work to do in this day. 
It was very easy once to run over a list of articles 
and subscribe to them ; to recite a catechism ; to ob- 
serve one day in seven according to set usages. But 
the work of the Church to-day is the rearing of the 
grandest civilization possible; the rearing of the 
grandest humanity conceivable ; subsidizing, in this 
glorious endeavor, every truth available in the uni- 
verse. When this work is truly accepted, we shall 
hear no more whining about evolution, or develop- 
ment, or atheism. When the manhood of faith 
comes, the measles of the cradle won't trouble any- 
body. Should not a church, a pulpit, a theology, 
stand in the very van of progress and of thought in 
any and every hour of the world ? Should it not 
lead, sounding the trumpet of advance, the bugle- 
blast, onward f charging over hill and valley, instead 
of following in the rear with the ambulances, 
the vials of <odors, and the therapeutic skill and in- 
dustry of the ages? Is religion nothing but a hos- 
pital, fit only for invalids and imbeciles? Is it 
nothing but a school of surgery and medicine? We 
can treat it so if we please ; but as we treat it so we 
shall be. If the half or the tithe of what we have 
hinted be true, shall Christianity be represented as 
divorcing religion from life and the laws of the uni- 
e, and then be permitted to boast that she is the 
only true religion ? and that by and for her Christ, 
were all tilings made, and in Him do all tilings con- 
J Should we not show our faith by our works? 



//'/ HE CHURCH SHOULD B \2Q 

Let us not be behind, then. Let us cultivate i 

tive skill. Let us seek to attain grand consist, 
in this work of life. The Church should be the uni- 
manhood, and the university for woman- 
hood, with life for the tuition tittle, and success or 
failure for graduation. Looking upward, let us bring 
int> relation all fraternal truths, in nature, in provi- 
dence, in the world of beauty; let US harmonize all 
e correlative fellowships; let US strike for the 
root of things; and over all enthrone one Creator, 
one grand intelligent order of infinite, sympathetic 
thought Then all shall act in living, harmonious 
concurrence, and life and strength and virtue will be 
the result. Religion shall be to us a perpetual in- 
spiration, making us better and nobler ; more affluent 
in all that is true, beautiful, and good. The soul 
shall grasp the living truth; it shall put things fitly 
together by their joints, in every part; and thus it 
shall divinize itself in truth, in life and love, not only 
here, but forever. 

And this is my theme this morning: the tenden- 
cies and characteristics of the thinking world to-day, 
more potent in religion than anywhere else, for truth, 
goodness, and joy. Let us accept the hand of God 
as He extends it in providence. Going to the front, 
let us hearken for the word of command and ad 
vance. u Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord 
God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou 
King of saints." 

Be this the song and the inspiration of our pilgrim 
march. 

I 



VIII. 
FEAR AND LOVE. 

7'Jic' fear of tJic Lord is the beginning 

of wisdom. — Psalms iii. 10. 
Per) easteth out fear. — John i. 

4, [8. 

THE Old and the New dispensations put to- 
gether. Fear first: The death of fear and 
triumph of love at last. 

Fear begins the lesson of wisdom ; that is all. It 
- not continue it. After the initial step, it has no 
place. As man grows wise, cowardice drops out. 
The seed that was planted in the night and frost of 
trembling, appears in the blossom of love and the 
fruit of worship. 

The ground of fear in religion is threefold : instinct; 
wrong ideas of God ; and a wrong condition in man. 

The child trembles in the dark, lie is finite, weak, 
and immature. The child uses no such words; he is 
conscious of no such meanings ; but instinctively the 
shadows of dread are born in him and seem to hover 
about him. 

Wrong conceptions of God fill men with terror. 
They make bondmen of them, slaves, servile cap- 
tives as if chained to some royal car to grace the 
conqueror's triumph. In this sense God is thought 
of as omnipotent, indeed, but arbitrary, having a 

130 



MAKES MA ' [31 

greater can- and jealousy for his own rights and 
glory than for the good of his children. And th< 
wrong conceptions of God as a magnified Jupiter, 

make men afraid of Him, ewn grown men. 

And then again these terrors are bred in the nest 
of evil and wrong in man's nature. Nothing will 
make men such cowards as conscious guilt; nothing 

will take the stability out of a man's knees, or his 
heart, or his eyes, like an accusation from home. 
The very leaf whispers in demon voice; the sweet 
fragrance oi~ flowers is the disguised breath of some 
enemy near in the dark. 

And so for this threefold reason men are in fear; 
and fear is their master. 

This fear, especially religious fear — for of that I 
am speaking this morning — has wrought all man- 
ner of direful works in the world. Their name is 
legion — Moloch, Satan, Calumny, Sacrilege, Deceit, 
Guile, Extinction of Light, Confiscation of Honor, 
Blight of Manhood, Famine of Soul, Death and Dis- 
aster of all spiritual 'Hope and Power. No people 
ever rose from the inspiration of fear. No nation 
ever attained height and power and honor from the 
stimulation of that genius. No pure religion ever 
flourished in its shadow. No noble character was 
ever created by such motive, or the forces generated 
by it. Fear makes man ignoble. Instead of weaving 
crowns, it discrowns him. Making never a hero, it 
dooms possible heroism often to cowardice and 
craven meanness. No God was ever truly wor- 
shiped, with fear as an inspirer. No God was ever 



132 FEAR AND LOVE. 

loved who was dreaded Bad as man is, he is not 

ab«>ut to seek such embraces. No wonder the in- 
stinct of selfishness under the name of religion, has 

forced and bribed man to buy himself off from the 
power and purpose of an Omnipotence he dreaded, 
counting it his highest possible fortune to get out of 
his hands at whatever price. 

Fear, as a religion, makes God mercenary and 
man venal, As men have risen in intelligence, in 
virtue, in civilization, in conquest over the world 
(iod bade them subdue, fear has dropped out; the 
vassal has disappeared; bondage has become more 
and more a name without meaning. To rise, to be 
truly exalted, is to become free — freemen under 
God, not his slaves. Nations have always gone up 
as their ideas of religion have risen. The grade and 
character of the religion of a people constitute its 
social thermometer. You can read the altitude of 
humanity on the scale of its faith, whether pertaining 
to communities, nations, families or individuals. Joy, 
purity, liberty, light, worship, have blossomed out 
from human nature under the liberating and fructi- 
fying touch of light and love ; and so far as this 
order of things has come, salvation has come. 

So that religion is a graded order of education ; 
the unfolding, fructification, and elevation of man's 
nature in relation to God's nature; the opening of 
his eyes to see who his Father is, and what ; and 
such internal condition as receives and develops 
the character of God himself Beginning in fear, its 
education passes up out of fear, by a regular grade, 
through intelligence, and culminates in love. 



7LMINATING S\ 1 33 

Intelligence is necessary, Not one step out of 
the night and degradation of superstition lias the 
world ever moved, save as lifted by intelligence — 
emancipation of the mind from ignorance by means 

truth. The great world of law, order, science, 
has done immensely already to break up the empire 
nt superstition. She has slackened her grasp not 
m\cc upon human nature, save as it has been neu- 
tralized by the touch of truth and reason. 

But that is not enough. Intelligence even of an- 
lic ken and flame, must be impregnated by a life 
and a quality from above itself, or some hour will 
come when its own results will fall back upon itself 
like ashes from spent fires. It must be so, or there 
is no immortality for its functions; no God related 
to man. In a word, it must be so, or we are talking 
like insane men about religion this morning. 

But that culminating stage is designated by the 
word lave ; passion of the heart; century flower of 
nature's toil ; the last slumbering possibility in hu- 
manity evoked and matured by the summer glow of 
God's love. We love him because he first loved us. 
We touch God, doubtless, by instinct, primarily. But 
He meant to get the world out of that as soon as He 
could. Then we touch Him through the world 
itself, through nature, creation, providence, the vast 
realm of intellectual life and power where God thinks 
and his glories flame out. We call it law sometimes, 
and science at others. This world of law, science 
and reason, as the manifestation of God, should not 
alarm professors and teachers of religion, when 

12 



134 FEAR AND LOVE. 

spoken of in connection with worship and faith. 
God's thoughts and ways Will not hurt anybody's 
piety in this world, or prospects for the next. 

But I Jod COmeS to US, also, through the Scriptures ; 

lie speaks through Prophets — the grand seers of 
time, the teachers and revealers — personally of his 

own personal it\'. God conies especially near to the 
heart of the world, its love-organ, in that He drops 
his own love by a Divine word or syllable, out of 
his own heart, into this very love-capacity of our 
nature. Here, in this hist communication, we seem 
to get a more radical hint of the fatherhood of God, 
than anywhere else — our Father as well as Creator — 
care-taker. Well may it be said that " \\? first loved 
us." Did you ever know a monstrous parent? Then 
you knew one without love; and God without that 
paternal attribute may be well feared, dreaded and 
deprecated as monstrous. Why, the world would 
give another god, if it could command Him, to get 
itself out of his hands and out of his power. I 
don't wonder at the theology of fear — dark, bloody, 
fallen! It is the eclipse of God and the night of 
Paganism. How it has coarsened the world and 
brutalized it ! 

This graded order of Christian education, starting 

from the night of fear, flashing on from the realm of 

intelligence, until the height at last be touched of 

, purity, and worship, stands confirmed by 

history. 

( rO back to the old religions ; go back among the 
Pagan gods and faiths, and what do we find? Is 






P \: 135 

m at his best estate in religion back there? Is the 

pr more cheering as you retreat? Any room 

for improvement, think you? The lowest and most 

primitive form is that of Fetichism, where men have 
their fetich-god, a mere creeping thing, inanimate, 
disgusting often. There is fear there — nothing else. 

Then passing up from that, you find men having 
gods tidy enough, because made of brass, silver, fra- 

mt wood, shrines, pictures, sylphs, and shining 
demons. Hut the end \>, not there. We find reli- 

• n pronouncing itself in still higher forms by and 
by, the forms of abstraction, ideal conceptions, imag- 
ination; some of them beautiful creations; some of 
them deformed and direful ; all aglow with human 
passion ; finely tinted with prophetic light, many of 
them. These stages of religion you find back among 
the old classic and cultivated nations and peoples of 
antiquity. 

Finally, religion comes up to the Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of Man. " Love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as 
thyself." Not fear now, but reason, love, and a 
sound mind reign; not stocks and stones; not 
dreamy abstractions, but love, born from one being's 
nature, toward the nature of another being ; a heart- 
flame kindled in the lower by the pregnant touch of 
the higher. A perfect religion casteth out all fear, 
all bondage, all servility, through the dominion of 
perfect love. 

1 intimated a moment ago that many suppose 
there is no such thing as improvement in religion. 



136 FEAR AXD LOl 

[mprovement in commerce, the arts, governments* 
money-making, and so on; but no improvement in 
religion! Alas! Is the Sermon on the Mount no 

improvement upon doves and bullocks, children in 
the Ganges and mud-turtles of the Nile? 

Go back over the world and begin down in the 
night of fear where the crocodile is God, and man 
trails his devotion in the slime-path of the reptile. 
Follow up the idea of religion as man had it then, 
and has it now, and will have it by and by ; and then 
babble no more about the ancient way as better than 
those the latter days cast up. The history of man 
is the history of improvement. A graded order of 
religion, science, civilization, manhood, from the 
cradle to the grave, is the Divine economy; and 
truth is more revealed to-day than ever. 

But where do we stand, personally? It is easy to 
preach about this, and hear about it ; and if we agree 
to be satisfied all round, we are apt to think the 
Lord's work is done. And yet the question is not 
superfluous: Where do we stand in this matter of 
religion? In bondage or out of it? building on hell 
and her shadows, or on heaven and her heart eternal ? 
drawing the inspiration of our motives from the 
Devil and his interests, or from God arid his nature? 
Fear hath torments ; fear hath hell ; fear hath bond - 
1 hope I am positive enough to be understood. 
We carry within us the material out of which all 
moral futurity is made. Fear drives people away 
from religion — no joy in it. They think, without 
saying it a great many times: " Religion is painful; 



77 'A' CHURCH. i J7 

it is a yoke; it has something grindingly irksome 

about it; and when I want a good time I 
where for it." Why is it irksome? Why, church 

rded as a sort of vaccination institution, 

which the world would have nothing to do with if 
SSlble. Whereas, the true idea of a Christian 
Church is not that; its meaning is the almoner 
of God's lite-bread to the world ; it should be the 
and inspiring tuitional school that feeds a man and 
lifts his nature to beauty, purity and glory, though 
there were no such possibility as perdition, or disease 
of sin in the universe. We break religion in two, 
and take the selfish half and call it "the mercy of 
God to us miserable sinners." The greatest sin we 
ever commit is this infraction of the Divine integrity, 
for we violate our own integrity in doing it. 
Churches ought to be the most attractive places 
in the world, vastly more so than the theatre or 
banqueting - hall. And they would be if rightly 
administered. They would be if men had the right 
conception of God, and of a human soul, and that 
soul were up to the development of the spiritual 
sense, and the joy capacity, and open to the highest 
inspiration in the universe. 

It is perfectly right and divine for a man to live 
from day to day by a morsel of bread. You never 
hear me fling disparagement upon the good things 
of this world, upon the fading beauties of the hour 
even, the joyous glee of children, the royal day of 
manhood. But man does not live by bread alone. I 
am talking of his relation to God, on the supposition 

12* 



138 AND LOl 

that if he die he shall live again. A great many 
times nun have not anything at home to be reli- 
gious!}- int I in ; their development is small, or 

in Other directions; their tastes are cultivated on 

other objects — right enough in their place, but they 
are not the whole of man; they mark not his higher, 
noblest opportunity. If there is anything in religion, 
anything of truth in God — this is the great matter 
of existence. Churches are for men, in the highest, 
truest sense. We want right conceptions of God, 
right conceptions of the human soul, and a right 
idea of human life — what they are for, these passing 
days of opportunity and duty. 

Look back, then. The further we ^o f the more 
positive!)' we strike into the religion of fear. The 
present handles religion on the arena of intelligence 
greatly, a conflict of ideas. The religion of the 
future will come out in the victory of Love, wherein 
heart and brain shall be winner; and of the offspring 
thereof there shall be no end. Much of the theology 
of the past holds no thinking man or woman to-day ; 
and you know we always mean by theology, what 
men think, what they guess, what they quarrel about. 
Religion is a different matter. The present contest 
about theology is this : on one side, whether God is 
nothing but reason; and on the other, whether there 
is any reasonable God at all ; reason with no God, 
or a God that is rational. That is the battle of mind. 
The future will crown both the God and the reason; 
the nuptials will be recclebrated of a wicked divorce 
which man, in his short-sightedness and in his dark- 



GI 139 

1 of fear and error has caused. The fire of the 

ler nature shall kindle the fuel of the lower, and 

the flame shall be worship immortal. Then the new 

heavens <ind the new earth will appear, and there 

shall be salvation. 

Get worthy conceptions of God, then; obtain 
worthy conceptions of man ; seek for right concep- 
tions of human life; and especially, if possible to 
specialize, fire yourself with a right and powerful 
conception of what it is possible for you to be. 
Growth in wisdom is the great business of life and 
religion; growth in the wisdom of the text is the 
path to heaven. To know God rightly is inevitably 
to confide in Him — that is faith. To be won by 
God is just to answer back from our love unto the 
love that He gave, first loving us. That love is wor- 
ship. Therein is salvation. 

Let me repeat : fear hath torments ; he that fearetji 
is not made perfect; perfect love casteth out fear. 
More and more is your love casting out fear, if you 
have the true kind ; and at last fear will have 
perished. 

When the fruit is ripe, the fairest blossom must 
fall ; the rough spring winds are all over, and the 
gathering time is at hand. When the Zion of human- 
ity shall sing, as she certainly will sing, that will be 
the time in which her bondage and her dark trepida- 
tions shall have ended. 

Only two more thoughts. First, have such con- 
ception of your God as shall win your love of Him, 
or you cannot love Him ; secondly, live such a life 



140 . FEAR AND LOVE. 

yourself as not to be afraid of Him, or you cannot 
worship Him. Gather right and inspiring ideas of 
his character, then make your own character con- 
form to that. 

Thus you will build not on hell, but on the foun- 
dations of heaven ; and the gates of darkness and 
disaster shall not prevail against you. 



IX. 

THE WORTH OF THE VD ITS APPROPRI- 

ATE TREATMENT 

What is a man profited if he shall gain the 

<or/d and lose his own son,' 
whet shall a man gW€ in exchange for 

hi - Matthew xvi. 20. 

THESE ar at words. They throb with un- 

saleable meaning. Evidently they arc great 
in that they come home directly to the main question 
of religion, of life, of man. 

The value of the soul is taken up here. A propo- 
sition handling its worth is thrown upon our thought. 
The implication is, there can be no perfect equation 
where the soul is one member. " Though a man 
gain the whole world," which means everything, 
" and lose his soul," where is his profit? The silent 
answering must be, nothing; nay, more, he is de- 
frauded. 

Men get the eye open sometimes afterward in- 
stead of beforehand ; and the backward look is not 
half so profitable as the foresight would have been. 
So the question comes up, What would a man give 
to regain his soul ? for that is the spirit of the ques- 
tion. What would he not give ? puts it more forcibly. 
Alas ! what can he give, if, possessing all things, that 
is but a mote in the balance of its value ? The soul 

is beyond price. I take it as we have it. I know 

141 



142 THE WORTH HE son.. 

that is not the exact literal form of the question. 
Throwing it into the optative mood, giving man the 
choice, possibly the strict thought is, I las man any- 
thing left which he can add to the price he sold his 
soul for? 

Three thoughts here come practically upon the 
mind: First, salvation is a work; secondly, a work 
on and for the soul; thirdly, it consists of what we 
make of the soul by that work. The logic you will 
see in the next verse ; for, says the great Teacher, 
" The son of man shall come, and then he shall 
reward every man according to his works." What, 
says one, are works a foundation on which to build 
the rewards of heaven? Just read the verse again: 
11 The son of man shall come in the glory of his 
Father, and then he shall reward every man according 
to his works. 91 Such was Christ's opinion, at least. 

Put in a single sentence, the truth is thus : The so:d 
is saved so far as it is treated according to the doctrine 
of its nature and necessities. 

The Christian world is changing front. Instead 
of facing, as for the centuries, toward cloisters, and 
monasteries, and castles, and cobwebs glittering in 
the sky, Christianity is fronting toward man, toward 
life, toward humanity or the soul. Faith and intelli- 
gence are turning their back upon the former things 
of man, while in doing that we come face foremost 
to the first things of God. 

I fence the modern drift of thought. The thinking 
we get now, somehow or other, right or wrong, is 
toward the humanitarian point. This drift is toward 



'■ 143 

toward psych< >l 
than theology; lor theology man makes, while 
y God makes. As time goes on the mind 

grinds itself clown deeper and deeper, and more and 
e directly on to the hard pan of truth and fact in 
place of speculation ; of science or certainty, rather 
than guess or mere hypothesis, waxing and advanc- 
ing continually, while the counterview which grounds 
in mere opinion, is waning. Everything in every 
is tending and drifting toward the practical 
and actual, and away from the speculative and hypo- 
thetical. I cannot stop it, you cannot stop it. Wis- 
dom would seek rather to gather up the reins and 
guide the movement, than find fault and block the 
wheels of the advancing chariot. 

Salvation, then — if we go by the New Testament 
and its spirit — means the soul evolved, developed, 
educated, cultivated, grown, ripened and perfected. 
Final maturity is the saved state. The method 
thereof and thereto is the way of salvation. 

This means the growth and the maturity of every 
department of our being. If you leave out any one, 
of course, there is trouble. I have no quarrel with 
men who contend that mere development or evolu- 
tion alone is not religion. But, including the whole 
of man's being, what have they to say ? The develop- 
ment of his intelligent nature, the development of 
his moral nature, the development of his spiritual 
nature, the development of every power, faculty, func- 
tion and capacity in him, touching this life and the 
life to come, touching himself and touching his 



144 THE WOA HE SOUL. 

Maker, waking up the entire man under divine in- 
spiration, whether in this Book or any book, out of 
the heavens or out of the earth — what have we to 
object? All grand, all potent inspirations and stimu- 
lations are for the sake of piercing and penetrating 
this very normal acorn of being, with reference to 
unfolding it and bringing it to final oakhood — the 
germ to the finished crown of glory. 

You will notice — for I hear the footfall of your 
whispering criticism — all this must be by proper 
methods. You ma)' develop man's being as a whole, 
or in the line of some specific faculty or function. 
For instance, put man into a university, and you de- 
velop him intellectually, leaving all the rest. Put 
him into a school of art, and you develop him aes- 
thetically; if you leave him there you save but a 
fragment of him. Develop him morally, and you 
may do it grandly, strongly, truly, as to that par- 
ticular department of his being; but if it has no alli- 
ances, no intelligence, no purpose, no sentiment, all 
your morality will be a limping, deformed and fettered 
thing, a dwarf, a monstrosity. You sometimes find 
a man all conscience, nothing else; therefore no con- 
science at all that has any practical worth in it. De- 
veloped in the proper method, however, and matured 
according to that, salvation results and consists in 
that maturity. 

I mean by this method, of course, a grand sketch 
and economy of culture, born in the conception of a 
Being vastly superior to the being to be educated. I 
mean a method of training and development sketched 



G< IN THE Si r/.. 145 

1 as all the outlying of 

man's nature ; ami when you have that, you have the 

ilc of his creation, which is the scale of his redemp- 
n, Ins immortality, his spirituality, his goodne 

Ins salvation. Man trainee! and grown under tin 
high conceptions, inspirations and methods, will un- 
fold symmetrically. All there is in him will be chal- 
lenged forth, and gathered up — will be saved instead 
of being wasted or lost. 

That is the idea of salvation. No other scheme 
of religion ever spoke of it so full)' and distinctly as 
the Christian ; and because of this superiority of the 
Christian religion, it has this universality in it. It 

adequate, exhaustive. 

Thus we cannot but perceive the image of God 
which sleeps in us. This type of God — for we are 
his children — is just starting in us like a waking 
dream, a shadow passing more and more into sub- 
stance through training and maturity. At last we 
shall be like God. Why not ? If the child is true, 
and reaches the term stipulated for in its parentage, 
will it not be like the parent? But you are startled, 
perhaps, that I make man like God; and you say, we 
shall be lesser gods. Certainly; nothing startling 
in that. The startling thought is that we should fall 
short of that; that we should lack the certificate of 
our original at last; that we should go up maimed and 
half finished, bereaved, and somehow lacking in some 
grand feature or main element in completion. The 
difference between you and your Maker is to be a 
difference of degree. He is infinite, you are fiiute; 
13 K 



146 THE WoKTII OF THE SOUL. 

He is Lift itself you are a recipient of life from Him; 
you bear his image for that very reason. You arc 

but a spark struck off here to be kindled into a flame 
of glory. You :\vc a dark unconscious image or out- 
line, to be awakened into a fact divine. So we hesi- 
tate not to speak of Godliness or God-likeness as 
pertaining to man. The whole problem of Chris- 
tianity in connection with our souls is just this, that 
I should reproduce Himself in us; finite as He is 
infinite; pure as He is pure; hoi)' as lie is holy; 
blessed as lie is blessed. When crowned in char- 
acter with the fullness and sweetness of his love, then 
-hall be finished. Perfecting the soul in that way, 
saves it. 

Here, then, we come into the new Kingdom, the 
kingdom of spirit. Who knoweth the things of man 
but the spirit that is in man? was inquired last Sun- 
da}-. The spiritual Kingdom is maris spirit spiritual- 
Vs spirit. This sleeping image and dream 
of being smitten by the fire of inspiration from God's 
own life, is that which .swells and expands and grows 
and bursts forth at last, throwing out leaf and branch, 
and bloom and fruitage divine. This is the kingdom 
of souls, minds, constellated thoughts, virtues and 
graces, and beatitudes unspeakable. 

Right here in this interest comes in the cliurcJi. 
The church is to be a kingdom-builder. She is to 
be an industrial organization for spiritual edification, 
th<- function of truth; in this way rearing up, edu- 
cating, developing man's nature, waking up thought, 
the deep slumber of glory and immortality in us. 



tfi 147 

use in which the church is a sal 

n provision. It is an educational fMi-crth.it is 
as G summer acts upon the seed in the 

>un& It is to work as any tuitional power works 
d, raw, uneducated material, 
tfthis idea, viz., soul development, the saving 
of the soul, flows the intellectual culture of the world. 
K\n\ the history of the world and you will find that 
the pathway thereof is starred by triumphs, just in 
pr< a as Christian inspiration has been per- 

mitted to touch the intellect and life. Science is 
horn, laws are enacted, civil society is organized in 
strength, beauty, and purity, just in proportion as 
thoe higher method- 01 d ivelopment and education 

ze the living spirit of man, his whole nature, and 
handle that nature according to its laws. 

And there is no civilization on earth that will stay, 
save that which flows from just this fountain. True 
civilization is nothing but the spirit of man devel- 
oped, purified, adorned, and enthroned over his ma- 
terial and sensuous circumstances. Men talk of ships 
and universities; they speak of commerce and mate- 
rial thrift, and all that, as constituting civilization. 
But eliminate this clement named — the spiritual 
force in man, led to its possibilities by a spirit higher 
than itself — and the whole idea collapses, as history 
tells you, and man is a failure. 

Let us come, then, by way of illustration, a little 
nearer to the practical line of our thought. Man is 
in darkness by nature; we understand that. Life is 
in darkness. O, how the old wisdom shrieked out 



I4& 



THE WORTH OF THE SOUL. 



fur answers to the great questions which nothing but 
new morning-light was adequate to furnish! Reli- 
gion is tli ' to dispel the darkness; a light in 
which man himself; a light in which he is to 
see his way, knowing one thing from another. Sup- 
a man turn his eye away from the abyss, and 
from the pathway, and gaze at nothing but light; 
into the sun ; spend his grand hour of opportu- 
nity in speculation about the constituent elements 
of the luminous orb, how they have come together 
to constitute the sun; how rays act on vision, their 
chemical properties, mechanical and vital. Suppose 
he spend his time analyzing the beauties of light, 
and writing down tables giving statements in books 
of what lie has discovered, or thought, or guessed, 
or imagined, as to the constituency of light, or its 
powers, what it can do, or be, or what it was de- 
signed to do. Why, the poor organ of vision itself 
would be dazzled to blindness, while the man would 
be left to tread his way in darkness. He would be 
just as liable to i^o wrong as right. Christendom 
has been full of star-gazers, sun-gazers ; full of specu- 
lative, analytic faith on light, and what light has done 
and should do. Should you never look at the sun 
at all, if you knew nothing of its constitution, you 
could use the sun for what it shines for, namely, the 
discernment of objects revealed thereby. And the 
great object revealed by religion to you and me 
ur nature, the soul, and the course it has to take 
to reach its glorious cm\. 

There came a time once, and shortly after the 



AY \ 1 III! 

advent of Christianity, when the mind was actually 
d in this way. Very soon the ( Christian fath< 
o wrapped in lunar speculations, or stellar cal- 

ations, or solar computations, as to the high sky 
of religion, that they forgot man. The poor thing 
called the soul, was in darkness; and the cold, damp 
cavern in which it lay, bred worms that crawled over 
it and gnawed away its life Corruption rioted there 
while the teachers of religion were star-gazing; and 
ing new tabular arrangements and formulated 

ttements of the constituents of things beyond the 
clouds. Then faith was all ; the mind must believe 
so and so, as they wrote it, or be damned ; while the 
poor soul was rotting in the damnation of falscm 
and neglect! If the light in such wisdom be dark- 
ness, how great is that darkness! 

Religion is a life as well as a light. The beam has 
warmth in it, the shining ray is full of fire. The sun 
of nature in God's economy was designed to make 
the summer for the earth. Suppose a farmer to go 
forth and say, I am a husbandman ; I can do nothing. 
The summer is all, and works are nothing with me. 
So he gazes at the sun, and believes in the sun ; he 
goes to his books which wise men have written 
about the sun, the velocity of light, the intensity of 
heat, the luminousness of the ray, and what is in the 
sun and around it, and says: Every word of it I 
believe. Credo, credo, crcdimus. I believe ; we all 
believe. But where is the corn ? where is the wheat ? 
where is the harvest of this believing husbandman? 
Had he never known anything of these speculative 
13* 



ISO THE WORTH 01 

inquiries, the com and the wheat would have grown ; 
and true to his own powers and opportunities, his 

land would have yielded her abundant increase. So 
the faithful and obedient soul yields its resources, 
and grows and ripens into salvation. 

There came a time once, when the world made 
just this mistake. Craft and convenience and greed 
of power came to religion and the Church, and said, 
Let us have a compromise. And the hand of the 
heavenly took the tainted hand of the Qarthly, and 
Christ and Caesar were one. Old Constantine pre- 
sided at the marriage of the priest of God and the 
priestess of the devil, and the nuptials are celebrated 
to this day. Doctors of divinity, doctors of law, 
teachers of churches -pun fine cobwebs of divinity, 
so called, fine threads of speculation, and the propo- 
sition was: () church, O Divinity, if you will spin 
religion on these cloister spinning-wheels of specu- 
lation, we will run the man and the world ; we will 
manage the soul and make the character. And it 
was agreed to. And down beneath the shadow of 
old cathedrals to-day lies rotting humanity, the price 
of that bargain. Religion was to believe things 
said, things taught by men. Religion must not have 
any work, any faith or scope in man's nature or in 
man's soul. Dead works, indeed I Which kind of 
works i> best, think you, live works on live men, or 
dead works on dead speculations? One is forbidden 
by the Hook, the other is enjoined to the extent that 
so far as you work out your own salvation in this 
life-work, you shall be saved. While cobwebs breed 



WORA ' 151 

asthma, consumption and death, religion is a light, a 
life, a work on the soul, as we have affirmed it. The 
husbandry is there; the development there; the evo- 
lution there; moral, spiritual, beauteous, graciou 

( ) how beautiful ! 

I was struck the other day by a grand thought 
just in this line, from one of the grandest essayists 
as well as historians in Europe. I will read it: 

Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England; many 

nation on the mysteries of faith, on the divine mission 
of the clergy, on apostolic succession, on bishops, and ju>titi- 

tion, and verbal inspiration, and tin- efficacy of tin 
ments; hut never- during these thirty wonderful years, never 
one that I can recollect on common honesty, or those primitive 

mmandments: Thou shalt not lie; Thou shalt not steal. 
All that Christianity was meant to do in making life pure, was 
left undone ; while teachers gave themselves to spinning theo- 
logical cobwebs. 

Thus in place of the old material idolatry, we erect a new 
idolatry of words and phrases. Our duty is no longer to be 
true and honest and brave and self-denying and pure, but to 
be exact in our formulas ; to hold accurately some nice propo- 
sition ; to place damnation in straying a hair's breadth from 
some symbol which exults in being unintelligible, and salva- 
tion in the skill with which the mind can balance itself on 
some intellectual tight-rope. 

So that all that Christianity was meant to do in making life 
pure and noble, is left undone ; while teachers give themselves 
to spinning theological cobwebs and building speculative 
castles in the air. 

Thus says the royal man. Brave words, indeed, 
to be spoken in Old England; but no braver than 
true. 

This great matter we are all to look in the face. 



152 77/J- i: . 0/ THE SOL L. 

The world has outlived the cobweb dynasty and 
economy. The cloister is drifting away into dim 
vistas, so for as it ever thought it meant man or God. 
The thought of the hour is coming directly to the 

ma)i y and into man and his nature x into the grandeur 
of liis neglected soul. Very early it was that Chris- 
tendom sought a divorce of religion from morality 

— of what is called religion from actual manhood in 
life. This is the tendency always. It was and is 
the course of the whole heathen world. This very 
fact explains all religious revolutions, and many 
other revolutions, from the fact that that state of 
things is a falsity; the nature of man in its normal 
originality, being truer to God than any speculation 
of man on its abnormal wanderings ; and it will in- 
variably seek to rail}' and assert itself, when the 
falsity becomes so towering and so oppressive that it 
can be borne no longer. 

Just look, in this country — I refer to the mat- 
ter with perfect respect — look into the Episcopal 
Church to-day. What is the matter there? Why, 
Luther sleeps in human nature. The poor, mute, 
suppressed reformer is in the soul, and cannot brook 
delay much longer. How is it with old Catholic 
Europe? Grand conventions are organized; what 
for? The world has outlived the old speculations. 
The world has come to the conclusion that mere 
water effects no change whatever in character, 
whether it come down upon a man in a shower of 
heaven. Of is applied at the tips of a bishop*S fingers. 
A man is to be rewarded hereafter and here, at the 



! 53 

tribunal of righteousn* cording to his soul work 

— according to what he makes of himself as a man 
in the ways of manhood, integrity, industry, and 
fidelity. OKI Europe to-day recognizes that there is 

a bigger Luther in her at this very hour, than nailed 
the theses to the doorposts at Wittenberg. And 
you cannot stay these things. My admonition is: 

be not found in conflict with nature or Providence; 
but be men with eyes in front, and with ears listen- 
ing Godward. 

Now don't imagine that I have turned away from 
tin pel by turning to works which the gospel 

enjoins. Don't suppose we forsake God, and Christ, 
and Paul, and the evangelists, because we turn to the 
soul, and try to save it in the only way in which sal- 
vation has any intelligible meaning. We only turn 
from speculations, as you must see. The Gospel 
looks directly to man, to humanity, to the soul, or 
human nature. Don't be afraid of works. No soul 
is ever saved any further than it works out its own 
salvation, according to the God-inspiration working 
in it. The works wc are warned against are the cob- 
web works, the ritual works, in such organization 
and institution of religion as is supposed to stand 
only to be believed. It is not faith in a machine 
that accomplishes anything; but the use of the ma- 
chine — its application. Works of mercy — works 
of purity, gentleness, faith, honesty, manliness, wo- 
manliness, and of all the grandeur and beauty and 
splendor of all human capacities, are what the wait- 
ing hunger of God looks for. The stimulation, the 



154 *TH 01- THE So CI.. 

growth, the ripening of all these, make the finished 
man. A cup of cold water given to a poor Chicago 
sufferer, is infinitely more divine and valuable in this 
matter of salvation, than all the theological cobhouses 
and monastic tapestries that were built or woven 
from the fourth century to the fourteenth. And you 
must know that right to those centuries we are often 
told we must go now for our doctrines and our 
creeds. Those great religious structures we are ex- 
pected to look at, and to agree to believe; while as 
di recti}' we are expected to neglect our own souls, 
and forget the nature God gave us. u Lord ! Lord !" 
never saved anybody. Have we not believed this 
and that and the other? Cries never save. But the 
doing and being always save. Do those things and 
you shall never fall. 

Man must be cultivated, then, lie must be trained. 
His soul must be cared for. God has planted it here 
in the garden of time and opportunity. God's Church 
means responsibility and fidelity to the soul in its 
great culture. He has given the summer and the 
sunshine, lie has pledged the dew and the air and 
everything. We must pledge industry. Thus we 
present our theme. 

Think, then, soul, what wealth sleeps within 
thee! What a grand thought it is: "I am a being 
in the image of God ! " A mere conception of the 
possibilities that lie nascent within you, stirs aspira- 
tion and royal endeavor! Think what environment, 
what surroundings, what divine summer, what gird- 
helpers, what flocking allies, from sky, from 



\UTIFUL THING is 1 1; i ;: 

th, from God, wait to lift and crown you ! Think 
what divineness steeps within thee, I I soul, bearing 
the image of the Maker! What empty capacities, 
what waiting scope and scale of being to be filled 

OUt, tO be realized by that fidelity which refuses to 

any price for the soul, or itself! — which so han- 
dles the soul as to hold true to the estimate that 
Christ put upon it. It ceases, however, when it falls 
from its native scale, and is false to the injunctions 
of the opportunity of its birth. 

Then think what a beautiful thing life is! How 
I rejoice in life every day, more and more! Think 
what a fine life every soul may live! Think what 
beautiful thoughts, what beautiful feelings, what 
grand sentiments, what high and glorious outlooks, 
we may come to be crowned with ! Think what 
inspirations may lift us in the still morning hour, in 
the still night hour! Think what grand girdings of 
fellowship flock invisibly, inaudibly, around every 
soul that is true to itself, remembering its origin, 
remembering its destiny ! Life, life ! Think of it 
again, O ye who are flitting out of it, with souls 
swelling and bursting like spring buds, or withering 
and shrivelling and perishing like flowers broken 
from their stems ! 

Day comes out of night; so does the soul saved. 
Harvests ripen from spring seeds; so do souls under 
proper culture. The ore holds the precious metal 
which, when crushed, yields the pure diadem to 
sparkle forever; so does the soul under God. It has 
no equivalent out of itself, save God ; and God who 



I56 THE WORTH OF THE SO EL. 

is its superior, not its equivalent, cannot come into 
commercial relations. God never sells Himself or 
his benefactions. No soul can find any substitute as 
an equivalent. Ideas of this sort breed confusion 
never set down in the Divine economy. There is 
no price for the soul. Not even Divinity stands in 
commercial relations to it. 

The soul, to be saved by the Christian religion, 
must be Chris ted in character. The soul, t© be saved 
by the religion of God, must be made like God in 
character. And when it is so changed, when it is so 
born again, there is wrought and certified in it the 
fitness of heaven. Heaven is its own palace ; it be- 
comes its own temple, its own mansion not made 
with hands, to be eternal in the heavens. 



X. 
SALVATION— THE OLD AND NEW VIEW. 

What must I do to be saved ? — Acts of 
the Apostles xvi. 20. 

IF you go into New York, or any of the great 
cities of the world, and seek to get a full and 
true view of any remarkable street, you will stand 
first on one side and look upon the other; then cross 
over and take the opposite position, and observe 
what confronts you there. Thus you get a complete 
view of the street. 

So with thought. One-sided views are never whole 
views. In the midst of right and wrong, truth and 
error, we can never understand the right fully until 
we understand what is not right; we can never un- 
derstand any truth or error so well as when we have 
contemplated, intelligently, the opposite of the truth 
or error. 

I presented, last Sunday, what I believed to be the 
proper idea of Gospel salvation, viz.: the truth which 
Christ taught, so applied to human life as to make 
man, in his life and character, Christ-like. In other 
words, the soul educated, grown, ripened and per- 
fected ; the orderly and harmonious development of 
all our faculties ; the growth and maturity of every 
department of our being — -not omitting, of course, 
the due subjection and subordination of the selfish 
H i57 



1 5 8 SA 1. 1 v - /'/// ./> NE W l '//: ir. 

propensities of our nature. This final maturity, or 
this developed, well-balanced, well-ordered, Christ- 
like condition of the soul, is the saved state. And 
the method thereof is the way of salvation. This I 
said in my last Sunday's discourse. 

But there is another view or theory; and it is old. 
I don't know of any doctrine much older, that has 
i ordained and authorized by the church, than 
this which I propose to set forth this morning. I 
am glad to have you know this other view. Indeed, 
you know it already. But, as I said at the outset, it 
is wonderfully instructive to contemplate opposites 
b >gether. 

The theory of salvation that we will state this 
morning, begins with the idea that man is lost in the 
premises of his nature; that in the fall of the sup- 
posed first man we all went down ; and there we are, 
to begin with. It is assumed in the outset that we 
are sinners, condemned, and liable to the pains of 
hell forever; and the more dismal, abject and vile 
the picture we can make of ourselves, the nearer we 
are supposed to be to Divine truth on the subject. 
Thus all the world lies exposed to hell ; and the re- 
frain of most of the praying and believing of Chris- 
tendom for the ages between us and the advent of 
Christ, has been a world, generation after generation, 
rolling on like billows over the sea to darkness and 
death. I don't wonder it has stirred the Christian 
heart to the very depths. 

Accordingly, the first thing to be done in this way 
of salvation, is to become convicted of this terrible 



Th \". 159 

truth; not only somehow to know it, but to be 

d by a >f it. The next th;. 

a c tion, vitally in the mind and heart, that 

Christ died u^v us; in the first place as a substitut 

sufferer for our sufferings, as sin in place of our sin ; 
that he took punishment in place of our punishment, 
and paid our debts. And in the second place, that 
by that death he has so appeased the wrath of God, 
and paid a certain penalty, that it enabled God to 
exercise forgiveness. When this conviction with 
1 to the lost condition of man, and with regard 
to Christ and what he has done, becomes so deep 
and influential as to become an experience, the be- 
liever is said to be converted ; and the usual course is 
to confess it by joining the Church, and thus gain a 
putative standing among the saved. That is salva- 
tion — assumed to be salvation. Such a person is 
spoken of as in a hopeful condition, is regarded as 
among the children of God. That has been the faith 
of ages; and it is the faith of millions upon millions 
to-day. 

Now, based upon this theory of salvation as to the 
doctrinal part of it, we find a corresponding theory 
of human life and the world. We all know how 
true it is that the world, under this view, is at once 
placed in contrast with religion ; in opposition to re- 
ligion; as its enemy, the enemy of souls, hostile and 
dangerous to salvation; so that the believer, or he 
who hopes for salvation on this ground, is admon- 
ished from the first against worldliness, against the 
vanity, pomp and ways of the world. He is ad- 



l6o SALVATION—THE OLD AND NEW VIEW. 

monished that his salvation is imperiled by con- 
formity to the world. lie is exhorted to forsake the 

world and flee from it; to avoid its pleasures, to 
separate himself from its interests, to drop its hot 
pursuits, and cultivate no longer its joys. He is 
urged and perpetually charged to abstain from 
worldly gratifications, as if it were dangerous even 
to desire fine houses, or extensive lands, to tread 
upon soft carpets, to sport rich and costly equipages 
and dress. Wealth is set forth as the most danger- 
ous and subtle of all foes to the soul ; so fearful is its 
influence for evil, that the impossibility of a rich 
man's entering heaven is symbolized by a camel 
going through a needle's eye. 

The hopeful soul, under this theory of salvation, 
is warned from first to last against the vanity of 
fashion ; he is never expected to be seen at the opera, 
or attending concerts ; he is not to be borne about in 
beautiful carriages, possess costly paintings, travel, 
or even cultivate fine manners, lest he become not 
only worldly, but wander from the way of hope and 
life. The convert must never attend nor give parties ; 
he must not enjoy any play or game; the dance is 
the unpardonable sin ; and the charm of a stringed 
instrument, the devil's foremost. 

This, you see, is the austere view of religion; it is 
the hard, horny way of being saved ; it is the gloomy, 
joyless view. It is this view which makes children 
SO dread the very name of religion. It is this view 
which makes them hate to go away from their plays, 
their sports and their young gush of joy which the 



VIEW <>/■ Rl / r6/( 

Rowers give them, and the mu streams and the 

glory of hills offer them, into the unattractive and 

exercises of religion. They hate the un- 
naturalness of it. It is this (act which makes a great 
deal of religion irksome, not only to young life, but 
to mature life; this view it is which makes it seem 
so contrary to reason and common sense. The 
theory itself teaches religion to he against nature, 
the enemy of the material man, and the natural man 
the enemy of it. That is, to be natural is to be in 
danger of being lost. Hence the unnatural tone and 
manner, assumed a great many times, in which peo- 
ple talk about religion. They are artificial, unnatural, 
affected, disguised. So that it is very observable, 
upon a change of subject, how marked is the change 
of manner and tone. The face lights up like sunrise, 
and the voice rings like the chime of bells. They 
have got out of the irksomeness of religion into what 
is natural. 

I will venture to say that nine out of ten of those 
here to-day have had this experience in childhood. 
They thought they must do and be so and so, and 
the more unhappy they were in their religion, the 
better the sign that they were in the right way. A 
conscientious child once justified his reading of a 
secular book on Sunday, by saying: M It makes me 
feel almost as bad as the Bible does/' Under this 
view the reading of the believer is properly confined 
to a certain cast and range of thought. He must 
read, for instance, " Allein's Alarm ; " " Edwards on 
the Affections;" " Baxter's Saints' Rest;" "Baxter's 
14* L 



l62 SALVATION— THE OLD AND NEW VIEW. 

Call ; " and books of that sort, canonized and sancti- 
fied by the faith and piety of ages — for good men 
and women have believed this way, 

I am only trying to state the doctrine, not judge it. 
Prayer, meditation, self-denial, self-contempt to a 
great extent, are supposed to be the process of grace 
and growth in knowledge and truth. So that our 
hymns, almost every one of them, are constructed 
on this basis of religion : 

u Look how we grovel here below, 
Fond of these earthly toys ; 
Our souls can neither fly nor go 
To reach eternal joys." 

No joy here. It is the refrain of a lost cause ! Al- 
most every hymn in this book is on that pitch. It 
is very difficult to find a hymn that rings out of a 
clear bell uncracked ; the true voice of God, the 
angels' song that broke out upon the world when 
light and victory touched it. The refrain of a lost 
cause? No, never. Christianity is not the procla- 
mation of defeat, but of a grand triumph. Almost 
all Christian prayers are deprecatory. Pick up any 
book of prayer of the last thousand or fifteen hun- 
dred years, and that is the key upon which they are 
pitched. So with extempore prayer — a piteous be- 
seeching; a kind of lamentation over disaster and 
doom. The refrain is of the same kind in catechisms 
and confessions. 

Now, all this is perfectly consistent. You cannot 
find in any book of logic a more consistent system 
of thought than this very view of salvation presents. 



wi [63 

It is framed together And compacted in every joint 

and part. There arc no loose joints. State the 
premises, and the conclusions arc inevitable. The 

scheme hangs together. The lost condition of man — 
what Christ died for — hostility of the world to re- 
ligion, and so on; it is all a consistent whole. To 
be consistent, the believer aught not only to quit 
the world and its follies, but its pursuits, its gather- 
ing of wealth, its dance of joy, its bloom of fields, 
its sheen of skies, its song of life. Secular! secular! 
is everywhere written. Dangerous ! Bew r are ! To 
be consistent lie has no right to enjoy any pleasure, 
any pastime; scarcely may he smile. He has no 
right to follow the fashion. 

O, believing man, believing woman, you break 
faith with yourself, and deny the force of what you 
write in your confessions, if you follow the dance of 
fashion in this world ; and he who breaks faith with 
himself and with his creed, cannot hope for salva- 
tion that way. To be consistent, the believer in this 
view has no right to a minute's rest. Would you, had 
you been in New York the other day and heard the 
cries of the servant-girls in the fire, have felt that you 
had any right to be lying back in your fine carriage 
and pass along unheeding those burning victims ? 
Could you allow yourself to tarry a minute ere you 
should rush to the rescue ? Would you not even 
imperil your own life? Would you be a man if you 
didn't do that? But are you any more of a man, 
when you stand up in solemn sincerity and subscribe 
your faith to a belief that the whole world, not only 



164 SAL I \'— ///. VD -W ir. 

by night but by day, is on fire, and souls arc rolling 
by the billows of the gen n into endless burn- 

! at last, and yet believing this, ride easily along 
in decorous unconcern? Do you call such believing 
and such doing consistency? I don't say you do. I 
am only interpreting this view of saving souls. We 
ought to be up and sounding the alarm, every one of 
US, if things are so. And I honor the consistency 
of those fanatics who are consistent enough to do it. 
.And if, instead of doing it a week or two in a year, 
they would do it the whole year round, I would 
honor them fifty-two times as much as I do. If this 
theory is right, then the ages have been right, and 
the old monastics were right, the monks and the 
hermits were all right, in abjuring the world and 
extirpating one half of their nature for the sake of 
saving the other half They proved their belief by 
their works, and turned their backs upon life, its 
beauties and its joys, for the sake of a life to come. 
This is the theory. 

How now about the facts? Let us look at this 
church, or any church in the world. Do church- 
members act as if they so believed ? Does anybody 
act as if he believed it? You say, no. But I say 
they profess to believe it, and what shall we conclude? 
It is in their doctrinal books. I have heard it in 
Milwaukee, as elsewhere. Hut believing the doctri- 
nal part of it, do they take the other part? Do they 
turn away from the world? Do they abstain from 
it> pleasures ? 1 )<> they not build fine house's ? 1 lave 
they no anxiety for life — I mean the believers in 



PK I \DIi 11 VG TH 

this very theory? Are they n< n .it the opera? 

Care they nothing about fashions, think you? I am 
speaking of the consistency and integrity of the mat- 
ter; of the question whether we affirm or deny in 

our practice, what we assert in our professions and 
belief. Let us look furtlu r. 

Every man, every woman we see in the chureh 
and out of chureh, is industrious, devoted to some 
busint me useful pursuit in life; interested in 

making money, in building houses, in having fine 
homes, in the latest fashions; loving music, loving 
pleasure, loving ehildhood and childhood's glee and 
joy, — ^nc as well as another. Do you see any of 
these believers — these saved ones, rushing through 
the streets sounding the alarm that the world is on 
fire — going to hell? Are they given up entirely 
to self-denial ? Does practice look as if theory were 
a matter really believed at heart? 

The keen observer of human conduct and human 
motives listens to the exhortation of the professedly 
saved soul ; exhorting him to flee from the wrath to 
come ; while the speed of this very exhorter, perhaps, 
in the chase after this world, outstrips the coursers 
of Dives. The little child sits still and listens to the 
instructions of its teacher. The bedecked and be- 
jeweled believer in this way of salvation, set off to 
the last touch of fashion, warns the little life to avoid 
the vanities and shows of this world. The child is 
not old enough yet to stumble over the inconsistency 
of belief and practice; but by and by, from the still 
nest of memory a sceptic will be hatched, who will 



l66 SALVATION— TIL NEW VIEW. 

have faith in no religion whatever. Sanctimony and 
cant come of necessity, as the fruit of such contra- 
diction. They cannot be avoided. 

But in all this, through and through, you will find 
good people to some extent. They who believe one 
way in religion and practice another, if they are not 
the best, are not the worst people in the world. 
Sonic o{\\\c best that ever lived have believed just 
this way ; but their goodness did not come from their 
denying in their life what they confessed in their 
belief; their excellence rooted in their consistency. 
They lived out what they believed ; and we had bet- 
ter, vastly better, all of us, have a true, pure, noble 
life, though we have mistaken theories, than theories 
ever so sound, and lives that contradict them. 

The whole matter then as it stands, is fraught with 
very instructive considerations. First, if any belief 
be essential to salvation, there can be no salvation 
except by carrying out that belief. Secondly, if it be 
right in God's sight to -live in this world, and prose- 
cute the interests of the present life, then no belief 
can be right inconsistent with that. Thirdly, such 
belief and such practice never did and never will har- 
monize. No matter what faith one may hold, as long 
as he lives there is a setting under-current of reason 
and common sense that will make him a child of this 
world and its interests ; he will obey the laws which 
dod has ordained over his own being and over the 
universe, in spite of speculative theories of whatever 
kind. Men will always live as they do, only better; 
that is, the)' will always love the things of this world; 



. FROM I 167 

they always ought to; it is duty to enjoy them and 
give God thanks. Any profession in< tent with 

that, needs itself to be modified. And it is the pn 
sure of this inconsistency, among other things, that 
is breaking up outlived theories of religion, and that 
makes the commotion of thought, conflict and confu- 
sion of ideas, in the religious tides of the times. 

Cut a man in two, and you can't make either half 
of him live. Religion cut in two, half theory and 
half practice, each contradicting the other, is death. 
That is precisely what St. James meant by faith 
without work-. 

The trouble comes in here. In the first place, 
from false ideas of God. God is no such being as is 
represented in the theory. In the second place, from 
false ideas of man. There is not a man who believes 
such vile things pertaining to himself in his own 
heart. False ideas with regard to Christ also, are to 
be taken into account. Christ never died for any 
such purpose as the theory claims. False ideas with 
regard to human life make a great deal of trouble. 
Life and religion must never be contradictory ; they 
go together. Any man who breeds a divorce be- 
tween his religion and life must be wrong. The 
trouble comes, too, from false ideas of salvation. 
Salvation consists of two things, the curing of sin 
and the perfecting of nature. Life and religion must 
never be put in opposition. What saves a soul, is the 
application of truth to human life and character in 
such a way as to create righteousness and true holi- 
ness. No matter about theoretic and speculative 
views. Men hold nameless diversities upon this 



l68 SALVATION— THE OLD AND NEW VIEW. 

matter; but the one question of a Christly character 
is the test question of the Christian religion. He 
who is best in his character, according to the New 
Testament standard, is the best saved man. 

Never, therefore, try to work religion against 
reason or science; you work God against Himself 
if you do. Never attempt to work religion against 
law ; you work the very ordinance of heaven against 
>\\ n enactments. Never attempt to work religion 
against humanity; religion is humanity's friend, sent 
to gather it up, to heal its hurts, and ripen its rawness. 
Never attempt to handle religion contrary to life; 
make them go together; bring them into harmony. 
Never set Providence against religion ; true religion 
is always in the channel of Providence, and her voice 
and her ministry are God's second. Never set re- 
ligion against common sense — common sense which 
is practical sense ; and the most practical sense and 
the most useful sense is always religious. A man's 
hope of salvation is worth just so much as the Gospel 
makes him worth in his character. Consistency is 
among the heavenly graces, of course ; but professing 
one way and doing the other, does not illustrate that 
consistency. 

The great truth is, he who lives right will be sure 
to die right, and be right for ever. M Whatsoever one 
planteth, that also shall he reap." Myriads before 
any theory or profession was thought of, rolled up to 
glory over the sea <>f time, because they forgot not 

( i< »«1, and lived under I lim according to the best light 
and knowledge of their day. 

God meant to save the world from the beginning. 



GOD WORLD. 

As soon as IK- began it, He began t it. The 

ng it was ordained from the foundation 

of the u^rld. The lambhood of God was then. ( i 

has been saving the world all along. IK- has never 

forgotten it. The ages have been in this intere 
all history is hut a record, in its place and in its way, 
of the development of this scheme of salvation. 
<1 is saving the world now. Whatever builds the 
finest and noblest institutions, is a power co-working 
with other powers in this line of salvation. What- 
ever creates the highest civilization, is exactly in ac- 
cordance with this problem. Whatever shall create 
virtue in the world, purity in the place of corruption, 
develop truth in the place of falsehood and darkness, 
works in the line of salvation. Whatever produces 
the truest manhood, is sure to be saving in the scrip- 
tural sense. Whatever awakens the deepest and 
grandest in our nature, and brings it to affiliation with 
the grandest in the Divine nature, is sure to set the 
soul on the way of salvation. Whatever shall so 
fertilize the root of our immortality here as to prompt 
its growth, looks to its fruitage in the life everlasting, 
or saves the soul. 

If life, then — if the institutions of life, the churches, 
the faith of the world, would just grasp these great, 
comprehensive truths, they would all be doing God's 
work of saving the world. If any sou! here so be- 
lieves and lives, he is so far saved. The faith in 
Christ that makes the life Christ-like, is the faith in 
Him that saves; the faith in God that makes char- 
acter God-like, is the faith that saves in God. 
'5 



170 SALVATION— THE OLD AXD NEW VIEW. 

Thus I have presented the two schemes. I am 
under obligation to you to set forth this twofold 
view. Don't let me force upon your acceptance 
either. Judge for yourselves. Choose ye which ye 
will adopt. My own view was given last Sunday. 
I don't believe this view — and for the reasons given. 

But remember that whatever theories we may hold, 
good, bad, or indifferent, a theory itself never makes 
a man better, never makes him worse, any further 
than he applies it and works it. Would you be saved, 
remember that he that feareth God and worketh 
righteousness, of whatever nation, clime, or time 
in the world, may be, will be saved. The life, the 
character, as they contain and illustrate the life and 
character of the great Teacher Himself, is that which 
saves the soul. Salvation is not in word, but in deed 
and in power. He is saved who is completed in the 
scale of his nature. The worth of the Gospel lies 
in what it can do in this august finishing. 



XI. 
HELP— A SUPPLEMENT, NOT A SUBSTITUTE, 

Mv kelp cometh from tJw Lor J. — Psalms 

cxxi. 2. 
Likewise the Spirit a /so helpeth our infirmu 

tics. — Romans viii. 20. 

HERE are two texts, one from the Old and the 
other from the New; not two because of any 
divorce or antagonism, but the twofold form of one 
and the same truth ; the God of the Old Testament, 
the Lord unto whom we look for help, and the 
Christ of the New Testament, the Lord manifest in 
the world ; the Father on the one hand and the Son 
on the other; the Divine Spirit and the human 
spirit, thus linking grandly and essentially the twain 
in one. 

Let me consider first this word infirmity. " The 
Spirit helpeth our infirmities." 

We are the subjects of infirmity in three senses : 
first, by nature — in our raw immaturity. That is 
one of the forms and significances of infirmity with 
regard to which we need help. 

Again, our infirmities mean our weaknesses, de- 
bility, a lack or lowering of the tone even of native 
vigor — sometimes called sickness, but weakness is 
a good name. 

In the third place, our infirmities are signified in 
the great ideas of wrong, wickedness, vice. What 

171 



172 HELP— A SUPPLEMENT, NOT A SUBSTITl . 

is sin? Sin is what is bad, morally. Sometimes men 

assoeiate the worth of Christianity only with this 
latter infirmity; I do not wonder, therefore, that 
they show no more vigor, thrift, or rightness. 

Next, consider the word help. " His Spirit helpeth 
our infirmities 

Help — a common word; it means aid, assistance, 
power lent; it means a recruiting, a reinforcement, 
and so on. The idea is plain enough. But you will 
notice that the help means power and augmentation 
applied, not to the wrongness, not to the debility, 
making it more so ; not to the weakness, increasing 
it; but to the subject thereof — a nice distinction. 
Vet upon that hair trembles the life and death 
of the matter. We don't want to help immaturity, 
making it more immature ; we don't want to add sig- 
nificance to debility, making it more significantly 
feeble; we don't want to make the wrong more 
wrong by any reinforcement thereto. But the be- 
leaguered subject of these wants help. You Want it 
and I want it; not that wherein we are what we 
should not be — enough of that already. We want to 
be made more and more that wherein we sliould be, 
ought to be, can be. 

Again, help means not only aid, re-empowering 
the subject thus beleaguered, but it is no supersedence 
of his power; no replacing of his agency by some- 
thing else; no suspension of it, no supplanting of it, 
substitution for it. Help is a yoke-fellow ; help is 
,i supplemental armor put on for your conflict. It is 
something not to unsay, and undo, and prevent, and 
supersede; but something to concur with; an aid 



THE DI\ W \PTED 

en ibling w h it i s to achieve success ; w] with- 

out this enabling supplement, what is would achieve 
failure. Help, then, means co-operation, that which 
renders something else efficient; it means correla- 
tion o( power, two powers yoked together, workii 

I ether; not that the helping power should knock 
the helped one in the head, but that it should make 
it more and more grandly itself and finally successful. 

Now notice the helper. "The Spirit hclpeth our 
infirmities" — the Divine Spirit. It is a good render- 
ing — " Helpeth our infirmities." He is the helper, 
for it must be a person. What is the helper? 
God the Father of the old dispensation; God in 
Christ, the typical and essential Divinity and power 
of the new dispensation. God, a Spirit in our spirit, 
the centre and heart and source of all vitality — that 
is the nature of the help. Hence I took the two 
texts from the Old and the New. 

1 laving, then, thus passed upon these distinctions, 
notice now the fitness of this help for that which is 
to be helped; the divine adaptation to the infirmity 
out of which the subject is to be helped, and from 
which he is to be helped forever. 

This Helper is no arbitrary, ill-suited appointment 
by the high court of heaven ; He is touched with a 
feeling of our infirmities ; not far off; not unapproach- 
able ; not unfeasible, but like us, to begin with. 
Then, again, this Helper is compassed about even 
with our infirmities, arrayed in the vesture of such 
fitness ; and so He stands commissioned and adapted 

to us. 

15* 



1 74 n 

In the second place, this help is divine. What we 
want here is Divinity. Put the neck of your hu- 
manity in one end, and that of Divinity in the other 
of the yoke, and you are yoke-fellows ; that is, co- 
workers, working out together salvation. The Divine 
power not killing, and supplanting, and superseding 
in ever\- sense the human power, but giving more 
] ower to it; passing its enabling virtue into the in- 
P.rmity of sin, of immaturity, of debility. 

Some time, when we get courage, we will have a 
discourse upon the humanity of God ; for we are his 
Offspring, you remember. If the child is human, is 
not the parent? It will do to think of until we have 
the sermon. Therefore we see there is the heart of 
humanity in this mighty help, as well as Divinity ; 
human perfectness which helps, in connection with 
the divine perfectness, to fructify us, empower us, 
and communicate the aid we need to make our sim- 
ple human endeavor successful in the great salvation 
problem. 

In the fourth place, this help is mighty ; sufficiently 
mighty; all-might}-; able to do and to accomplish 
ultimately even to the utmost what is needful; ex- 
actly the mate of all our infirmity 1 . 

In the fifth place, it is hearty. This help coming 
to US, comes as the result of no mere policy, no 
mere matter of head calculation, even at the throne, 
though it comes from headquarters. Hearty — what 
- that mean? It means the exuberance of the 
nature and power from which it comes; a surplus 
d iclaration, so to speak, of original investment in 



1 7 ; 

power and You can't purchase it; it is not 

purchas You fling profanation and blasphemy 

n it when you propose to weigh it in the balance 
tn equivalent It is self-balanced; it is a gift — 
hearty i original, unqualified. The fitness, then, mates 
on to the immaturity, for it is the life and summer 
power of God ripening our rawness ; it is the mighti- 
and inspiring force of God toning up our de- 
bility; it is the purity of God cleansing the ulcers 
and poison of sin in our nature. Thus for the dis- 
tinctions. 

Now just take this help and go to the problem of 
salvation. You are saved when these supplementing 
powers are so accepted by you that your own powers 
carry out the purposes for which they are made. 
You are saved when you are helped in this three- 
fold respect; when you utilize the helper; when 
you are helped to be better, or become better through 
these aids ; when you become stronger m your good- 
ness ; when you become riper in your combined 
strength and rectitude. 

Now, observe, the world has been figuring, and 
figuring, and figuring, for centuries, to find out how 
it can avoid the trouble of being good itself, and yet 
have all the advantage of being good. It has been 
trying to construct and soke a problem whereby it 
shall stand in the comfortableness of a good estate, 
without the trouble of rising to that attainment actu- 
ally and personally. And hence we find that the 
world is willing to believe, until the end, in the good- 
ness of somebody else, if that may stand in the place 



i;u HELl A SUBSTITUTE* 

of its own goodness* Instead of taking such bor- 
rowed goodness as a helping power to make personal 
goodness, it takes it as a substitute. The world is 
willing to believe in the working power of another, 
and that another should do the work, and do all the 
work, to the extent of superseding the necessity of 
any work on its own part. It takes the help as the 
substitute for its own endeavor. It has been willing 
to do that, and to interpret the Christian's idea of 
help in that sense; thus slipping its own head out 
of its end of the yoke, and anxious to believe that 
the force applied at the otlicr end will be sufficient 
for both. Vain illusion ! Ungrateful beneficiary ! Is 
that the kind of help we want ? 

Let me tell you — what you already know — that we 
want help in this matter of salvation, in this matter 
of our religion, on exactly the same principle that 
we want help any where. What is education? Your 
boy is raw, unripe, undeveloped in mind; he has 
certain weaknesses; in a certain sense he is feeble; 
quite likely already badly educated, perverted. You 
send him to school. He wants help. What does 
he want help for? Does he want it in the sense 
that he is called upon simply to believe that the uni- 
versity is a university, and to believe it with all his 
might? Does he want help in the sense that that 
university shall be a working power to release him 
from working? Does he want the school as a com- 
petent authority to make out the diploma and hand 
it to him while he masters not a lesson? Is that 
the help he wants ? An easy way indeed to make 



'.'■; HELP WE WA 

scholars. Such help can be bought ; but was it 

known to educate? What do you want help for? 

want it that it may take hold with your powers, 
and so enable you to lift the whole burden. You 
want it to empower you so to work with your own 
endeavors, that your mind at last shall be developed; 

the competence of your nature brought forth and 
disciplined; the raw immaturity of the immortal ma- 
terial of your being, ripened under the helping powers 
of the grand tuitional forces, — you want that, ex- 
actly that, in education. And the man is a fool, and 
everybody says he is a fool, and the cry goes forth: 
The fools are not all dead yet, when he proposes 
to buy scholarship, buy education by some sort of 
trick or substitution that releases him from the work 
and the ache at his end of the yoke. 

The help we want from God in this matter of sal- 
vation, from the God from whom cometh all help, is 
just such as the plant wants in order that it may get 
up out of the earth and grow and be perfected. 
Have these beautiful flowers sprung up without any 
aid? Why, God lets down his summer of warmth 
to help them germinate. He thus aids their uplifting 
energies to come forth all developed; so they get 
ability and glory beyond Solomon. The raw imma- 
turity in the seed-life comes to beauty and purity. 
Your soul wants just such help as that, and God has 
given His spiritual summers, the fire and force of 
his own spirit, quick and powerful, stirring the latent 
germ in your nature. But a flower has not choice; 
it is not a person; it histuictivcly co-operates. You 

M 



i;S HELP— A SUPPLEMENT, NOT A 1'L'TE. 

must do it voluntarily. That makes the difference 
between you and the plant. But the law and the 
method are the same. 

What >ort of help do your lungs want, for exam- 
ple ? The help of the air, evidently. Why? So 
that the lungs can rest and do nothing, and have a 
good time, letting the air do all the breathing? The 
heart wants help. What sort of help? It wants the 
help of the stomach and every organ and function. 
Why ? That the heart may stop and rest? That is 
the philosophy that reigns extensively in this world. 
Ah, the heart is the yoke-fellow of the brain, and 
the brain of the stomach ; and each function of every 
other. That makes the harmony; that is the divinity 
of the whole. 

So with light. The eye, in order to have good 
vision, wants the help of light; and the compliment 
may be returned. The light wants the help of the 
eye. Neither alone can produce the result. The ear 
wants the help of sound. The delicate musical instru- 
ment wants the help of skill in the fingers, and the 
frenzied genius of the musical soul. It can't do any- 
thing without it. Neither can the players do any- 
thing without the instrument. The instrument does 
not want the help of the player that it may do noth- 
ing, that it may not have a key stirred. No; corre- 
lation, mutuality in the matter is the law. In the 
production of water, oxygen wants the help of hydro- 
gen ; if you want to produce air, nitrogen wants the 
help of oxygen. Can you get water or air with only 
one element ? Does the value of one element con- 



TRUE ///•//'. 

gist in its being a substitution for the other? Or 
- it consist in its enabling the other to perfect its 

power and reach the result? If you want the cn> 

of steam, you put fire and water together. Water 

wants the help of fire; fire wants the help of water; 

not that the water should put the fire out and do it 
alone; not that the fire should drink up the water 
and destroy it; but, yoked together, the car starts. 

So God and man come together. Man needs the 
help of God, not that he may lie idle, but that his 
human impotence may be capable of doing what it 
could not do without that help. 

Now, is it not just so everywhere? Mow is it in 
your business life? A young man says, " O, if I 
had a thousand dollars; if I had five hundred; if I 
had just a little to ease me on here over this hard 
place; only warmth and sympathy enough to germi- 
nate me, I could grow." Let him have it and he 
will start ; and then, if he has business tact, he will 
succeed. But should he say, " O, that I had my 
thousands that I might do nothing, dress finely, take 
my rattan and go forth about the streets, depending 
upon that substituted help to do my work ! " Why, 
he could not get a place in a counting-room in Mil- 
waukee. You would not trust him to carry a parcel 
from your store to its destination. 

How is it in charity? There arc hosts of beggars 
in the world. How can you best help them ? By 
stuffing them full, washing them, and clothing them, 
and making them lctf)k like gentlemen ? If you act 
on that principle, your charities, being a help to their 



l8o HELP— A SUPPLEMENT^ NOT A SUBSTITUTE 

inactivity instead of a stimulation to help themselves, 
damage the poor. It is no charity ; it is a premium 
on profligacy and vagrancy; it is trifling with Provi- 
dence. But if you can help a need}' man, a hopeless, 
homeless man, with a kind word or a dollar that shall 
start his endeavors; if you can put an energy into the 
other end of his yoke in any way, do it; but don't 
do it in a way that shall slip his neck out. Other- 
wise, if you give him a gill, he will ask for a pint; 
give him a pint, he will ask for a gallon ; give him a 
gallon, he will want a pailful! ; give him that, and if 
you don't give him a hogshead next time, he will 
burn your house. It is a premium upon beggarism 
and loaferism, not only in the physical world, but 
even in the mental and moral world, to make help 
a substitute for endeavor. This dandling of spiritual 
subjects and trotting them on the knee of sentimental 
pity ; this shedding of artificial tears over them until 
they are drowned almost in superfluous sympathy, 
never saved a soul any more than it cleared the guilt 
out of a criminal. But if the soul can be aided to do 
what it was made to do; to make use of all its pow- 
ers in a right way unto their unfolding, unto their 
strengthening, unto their purifying, making use of 
helps that are necessary for that — that is divine J and 
beautiful is the life that gives itself to such help. 
Beautiful, indeed, are those who are helped in that 
way. That is the way to do good; that is the 
way to help in business ; th.it is the way to help in 
chanty, in want; that is the way the problem of sal- 
vation is sol rod. 



M v— THE LAW ( >/■ ///■:/. P. 1 8 I 

Go out among the looms of Nature's handiwork; 
take the web and unravel it. There is the long tlr 
running from the beginning to the end, and ther< 

the needles that ply. I low the needles want the help 
of the thread, and the thread the help of the n 
not that the one may be silent and do nothing, and 
be thrown away and counted as naught ; and not that 
the other may be superseded ; but that the)' may sup- 
plement each other, and the concurrence and mutu- 
ality of the two fill up the grand fabric of beauty 
and use, whether in star, or in flower, or waving field 
of ^ r rain ; whether in university hall, in the vast 
problems of statesmanship and civilization, or in your 
closets ; in your outlook towards glory ; in the navi- 
gation of that voyage that crosses the dark sea. It 
is a law — this law of help. Here is the great 
problem of salvation. Work it out, then, with fear 
and trembling. 

Why don't we take those aphorisms in philosophy 
and warm them until they seed our souls, and bloom, 
making our whole life fragrant? Why don't we go 
to work, co-work with God? I make an impeach- 
ment of God if, somehow or other, I propose to go 
on a flinty path until my feet bleed, so as to p! 
Him enough not to bleed me any more. God is no 
such hard master as that. Go to work ; use the 
powers that are in you, and the earth, and the air, 
and all the heavens are full of helpers that will flock 
to you and breed victory in your very impotence. 
That is what Paul meant when he said he gloried in 

his infirmities. He gloried in the fact that he stood 
16 



1 82 HEL P-A Si 'Pi XT, NO T A SI f BSTITl *TE. 

environed by such a state of things, that when he 
was weak then he might become mighty. We want 
help to make US successful. The helper and the 
helped stand in this true relation to each other; and 
when they co-work the problem is solved, and the 
solution is salvation. 

Now, I beg you not to figure that old problem, 
how you may get rid of doing anything by getting 
somebody else to do it for you, and still be just as 
well off as if you did it yourself. That day is waning. 
And don't you know that hundreds and thousands 
and millions w r ho trusted that problem, seeing they 
cannot work it, are floating all adrift, not knowing 
what to do? They are called sceptics, a great many 
of them ; and infidels, a great many of them ; and 
cold-hearted and bad-hearted. And then there are 
others who resort to stirring up superficial, artificial, 
fitful feeling, depending upon that. A better day is 
dawning. The day of negatives is passing away, and 
the day of positives is laying its strong hand upon 
men, in religion as in business; and, like God in all 
nature, men have got to work until they work out a 
character like the character of Him who is the great 
motto and model. They must come to the unfold- 
ing, and development, and maturity of their own 
powers, obedient to God, according to the great plan 
by which that is done. Then Providence is God's 
helper, a grand presence. Then they work in the 
midst of the scheme that is vital in itself. We are 
born into this grand supplementary aid, created into 
it, candidates for its benefits, only with wills and not 



rn 183 

impersonality like the flower. If you want the blej 
ing of God, keep the law of the Blessing; if you 
want to be saved, solve the problem of salvation. 
God helps those who help themseh 

I in the soul with regard to heaven, is not 
different as to the principle of it, from salvation any- 
where, any problem in nature, any problem in life. 
It means success, not failure ; conformity to laws, and 
not a violation of laws ; it is the reciprocity of the 
human and Divine power; two wills concurring, two 
hearts in the relation of reciprocity ; it is such use 
of God's power as renders )'our own power successful. 
When you find yourself striving, then, in the great 
conflicts and toils of life, friend, have a comfortable 
standing on which you can say, " Thou, Lord, art my 
lie/per'' When your own spirit consciously yearns 
toward the grand ultimatum, toward the ripening of 
the grand possibilities in your nature stipulated for 
in its make and in these helpers, then be consciously 
able to say that God's spirit hclpcth the infirmity of my 
spirit, ripening it, strengthening it, purifying it. 

On this cold, snowy morning, a basket of bright, 
blooming flowers came to my door; and as they 
passed up into the chamber of frailty and weariness, 
they lit up the cheerfulness of angel visitants. God, 
in all the storm and winter of our life, is sending 
down warmth, seeding this icy soil of our nature 
with bloom immortal. He is not a hard master; He 
is a husbandman whose garden is man's soul. He 
wants us to bloom in more than vernal beauty. He 
wants us to sing and breathe and be charmed in 



1 84 HELP— A SUPPLEMENT NOT A SUBSTITUTE. 

sweetiK and by, that shall make angel ministries 

to be forgotten and death the remembered mother 
of life. 

As Nature, then, in her mute, unconscious order, 
reciprocates the love and help of God, so may you, 
( ) soul, subject of the living, conscious spirit, recip- 
rocate the advances of help divine, bloom for bloom, 
life for life, glory for glory. Only reciprocate God 
in a use that shall not be abuse; then the heaven 
that you shall realize by and by, will be the ripeness 
of your nature, the glory of its strength, and the 
charm and sweetness of its unsullied purity — com- 
municated by Him who bows dow r n to man, that 
man in his earthly wants may be lifted to the fullness 
of the Father's estate. 



xir. 

MAN'S NATURE DEVELOPED BY THE QUICK- 
ENING POWER OF GOD'S NATURE. 

My soul cUavtih unto the dust. Qui 

thou me according to thy Word. 

THAT is an outburst from the soul of David in 
one of his fortunate moods. "The first man 
Adam was made a living soul; tlie last Adam was 

made a quickening spirit!' So argues Paul, the apos- 
tle, on the great theme of the Resurrection. The 
Master said, "WWiout me ye can do nothing? And 
He spake for universal truth and universal humanity. 
44 But I will make her desolate places like the garden 
of the Lord" sighed out the old prophet from his soul. 

These passages throw around my thought an 
atmosphere congenial to my subject; and therefore 1 
quote them, as God quotes the summer on the sleep- 
ing germ in the earth. 

Under the lead and spirit of these Scriptures, let 
me state and handle my theme for the morning, 
namely : " The development of our nature as a spiritu xl 
organist/; , under the power of a higher nature as a 
spiritual organism suited to perfect and save it, is the 
true idea of religion!' 

Of course it is implied that this higher nature is 

fit and adequate, in all specific details and respects, 

to the work that is to be done ; or, in other words, 
16* 185 



186 MA/PS NATURE DEVELOPED BY COD'S. 

that the relation between the two natures is perfect 
and complete. This being the heart of my subject, 
I will not dwell upon minute details as to the fitness 
of this relation. 

The great battle of all religious thought to-day, is 
prepared and is going on in the realm of human na- 
ture itself. All the searchings, all the inquiries, all 
the propositions, point to, and naturally are balanced 
and entertained in, this field and this precinct of 
humanity. 

Come, then, to your own nature to-day. We find 
it to be in itself a living organism, to begin with; a 
sleeping embryo of everything that lies mutely 
prophesied in its structure and capacity. That is to 
say, man's nature in and of itself, was made by God 
a seed-plat full of germs, full of rudiments, full of 
embryonic possibilities and futurities. Our nature is 
rich in this human end of the problem of religion, 
enriched by what God deposited in it when He made 
it. I said, it was at first and is a vital organism, a 
thing of life and functions and organs; a germ of 
possible unfoldings, developments, growth, maturi- 
ties. I repeat, by nature this is so; for all this I am 
speaking of, is man's human nature. Of course 
we mean faculties, powers, capacities, susceptibili- 
ties; hopes unborn, faith unawakened ; all the con- 
stituents that enter into this wonderful organism of 
life and future possibility. 

The next thing to be thought of is the great truth 
that those germs, seeds, or rudiments, however you 
ma)' name them, need to be quickened by a life not 



Wh 

in or of themselves. Their nature need 1 the 

il touch me other nature; which last is to 

communicate its power and its quickening force to 
the first, in order that it may fulfill, and actually 
finish, and entirely complete, the plan of its heir, 
and reach the end preordained for it, as well as in 
it, when God made it. These germinal potencu 
these sleeping functions or spiritual organs, need to 
be warmed by the heat of a sun not in themselves, 
but far above them. They need to be breathed upon 
and breathed into ; in other words, inspired, that they 
start on their career. They need to be cultivated, 
trained, tended, nursed and carefully handled. They 
need to be grown ; they need to be matured. You 
will please keep in mind that this work proceeds un- 
der the power of a nature higher than the nature 
held under culture and tuition. 

O, the wonder of this relation of man to God ! 
The wonders and unspeakable marvels veiled in 
these hidden relations, circulating, I may say, in the 
blood of these consanguinities. O, the wonder of 
soul touching soul; of nature giving itself to nature; 
of life propagating itself in life ! And yet why should 
we marvel, after all, at this great simplicity, wonder- 
ful as it is? For it is the most simple thing in the 
world. For thousands of years, and, for aught I 
know, we may say millions of years, God has been 
teaching this simple thought to the world. Every 
time He has commanded a warm sunbeam to pene- 
trate a sleeping seed in the earth and wake it up, 
that lesson has been taught. Every time He has 



iSS MAN'S NATURE DEVE D BY GO&S. 

commissioned a new spring or summer to come forth 
out of its hiding-place, and breathe a new life into the 
torpid earth, He has taught the same thing — the 
lower nature quickened by the higher nature; a tor- 
pid, slumbering, undeveloped organism, pierced with 
the life and fructified by a high and sufficient organ- 
ism above it — a counter-completing nature. These 
►ns and these rehearsals have been running on for 
5, and for cycles unspeakable, inconceivable. 
Precisely what God has taught in nature, we are 
to apply to spirit. This problem of our being in this 
grand work of religion and life, you perceive, is ex- 
actly in the nature of a birth. And I don't wonder 
at the rationalism of the New Testament that calls it 
the new birth. The soul born out of its ante-natal 
stillness and impotence, into power; the soul waked 
up to behold the world and order of existence it was 
actually created into; faculties unsealed, a sub-con- 
scious life and world throbbing up into conscious- 
ness — born up, such is the idea. Beautiful figure! 
Literally true. It is of the nature of regeneration 
exactly. Marvel not at that dictum in the Book, 
when your very pathway is thronged with the affirma- 
tion of it in nature! The competency of this higher 
vital organism smiting the lower, rends the bands 
and bursts the slumbering, waiting, anticipating life 
there. It is exactly in the nature of salvation as well. 
Nay, it is salvation itself. To be saved is to be 

quickened by this power of life from heaven, work- 
ing newness, working birth, working uplifting and 
completion in the fust Adam or humanity. 



WHAT 1- 

Salvation, what is it? Is it a kind of battle-cry in 
your theologic warfare? Is it a kind of ceremonial 

function in place of altars made with hands? A 

routine or ritual adapted to the external temple and 

trkings of sense ? Salvation ! A soul saved ! What 

is it for a soul to be saved but exactly this, viz.: the 
rudimental elements of its nature inspired, vitalized, 
cultivated and cared for unto the end, even to a crown 
of ripeness and fullness and glory in another world? 

And what is it to be lost, but just to be neg- 
lected? your nature left in its sterility, uncultivated, 
unquickened, unborn again? No rising from its 
grave, unregenerated ; with no higher life piercing 
it, enriching it, strengthening it, or perfecting it: 
To be lost is that. To be left to rot in the native 
hill, wasting, perishing, is terrible indeed; but sim- 
ple and plain as light; such it is to be lost. We lose 
ourselves. 

Look into the depths of this nature! Look down 
into the dark deep of the soul, down to the deep-sea 
soundings! Descend to the latent life there, the 
sub-conscious world that you have never heard from, 
into which no vision of yourself has flashed; go 
there. Glory sleeps infolded, and bloom and won- 
der. Palaces there are waiting to be entered. Ter- 
rible blasts, howling and darkness and desolation 
are there, the nemesis of foil}', neglect and falseness. 
Go down into the world within you, O soul ! the 
world of human nature, and find what lies buried; 
exhume it and make a right use of it. That is the 
problem of religion. 



IQO MAN'S NATURE DEVELOPED BY CUD'S. 

At first, man is only slightly developed. A child, 
he awakes to feel himself touched by the aspects of 
the world around him. That is the primal, natural 
development. His intelligence becomes adjusted to 
the life he is living here in time and nature. He is 
busy to obtain a morsel of bread. This is his first 
rudimental development. But ere long, after that 
beginning, there is deeper awakening. Profounder 
slumbers are stirred, and there come cries for some- 
thing which the morsel of bread will not satisfy. 
Whispers are born that say, u Man shall not live by 
bread alone." Other wants are revealed. Man wants 
what transcends the whole realm of sense and na- 
ture and matter. He wants spirit. Aye, better said 
than this ; man wants the life, the love, the sympathy 
of another soul. He wants the fellowship of a mighty 
nature; the feeding of a Being mightier than him- 
self, whose sympathetic bounty shall rain down rich- 
ness into human want and human wasting. This is 
spiritual development. Man is now under the tuition 
of God, through providence and revelation and in- 
spiration. And then, at last, there is a final devel- 
opment of man, a birth through the dark fiery gate of 
death. His very nature gets so awakened and so 
emergent in its conscious necessities, that the very 
bandages of time, the mortal wrappings of humanity, 
the old capsules, break and the prisoner flies away. 
There is a life beyond, then, waiting the issues of 
life here. That in itself is a high vital organism to 
work upon us. As it acts, the quickened nature 
within ascends, swelling and expanding all the 



THE LIFE BEYOND THE VEIL. IQI 

time, heart meeting heart, being meeting being, A 
divine organism above, ever more mightily pouring 

life down into the lagging slumbers of him who needs 
it on the mortal path to the immortal. 

This life beyond the veil is very soon hinted to us. 
I think of the present existence as parted off from 
that to come by a thin wall very much like a veil, 
almost transparent, and so delicate that the very 
pulse-throb of the great Nature up there, vibrates the 
medium and we feel it here. Sometimes we seem to 
see behind the veil faces of beauty unutterable, and 
glory looking through from beyond ; and we just 
catch glimpses of them through the thin transpar- 
ency. Then the vision once so caught, when it 
retreats, haunts us and haunts us evermore. We 
know then that the grand destiny and emergent ten- 
dency of soul and immortality in us, look beyond 
this visible to the great invisible world ; and that the 
finished state of our existence is there. Oh, patience 
now, and gentleness and still life come down and 
talk with us, and sit by our side. Wisdom breeds 
her counsels in our thoughtfulness, tenderness in our 
hearts, and we are new. We are advised of the 
abiding interests our life elicits there, and we have 
no abiding city here. 

Sometimes men think and speak as if they thought 
God were afar off; as if the spiritual world were far 
away beyond some grand stormy sea, above the 
heavens, at the end of a dark, returnless journey 
which we must all make to get there. But is it so ? 
Is that other nature remote in distance ? that other 



192 MAATS NATURE DEVELOPED BY GOD'S. 

heart far away? That other world, does it lie in 
some mighty offing? and are we interspaced by 
planets and reaches and expansions of desolation ? 
Is it not rather true that the whole of that mighty 
life-power already touches us, in our hearts if haply 
we may find it, warm on our lips, a divineness in our 
nature ? 

In this life — the better part of us, I mean, and 
that's all I am talking about this morning — we are 
in a slumber. Did you ever see a child sleeping on 
the grass, wearied by his summer play ? Of what is 
he dreaming? He is among singing brooks, whis- 
pering leaves, singing birds, green hills, beautiful 
heavens, balmy airs, a paradise of sense. But it is 
only a dream. Let him actually wake up, and the 
world will no longer be dream, but reality all about 
him. lie did not know it then. That dream was a 
prophet ; the dream was an actuality prefigured. So 
this life is a dream. The invisible world is haunting 
Sometimes we feel the facile hand that pre- 
conformed our nature to it. And if we would only 
wake up, if we could be quickened by the higher 
nature as to the sleeping senses within us, we should 
not only see dreamlands, and singing brooks, and 
green hills, but we should see just what made the 
hills, and we could read the music of the very score 
on which the song was written. Sense in all its bril- 
liance and glory would melt and vanish away, and 
there would be presented a new world. Even now 
God is here, and the spiritual world is here, and 
heaven is here tO-day. All that grand conception 



DEATH is A NEW BIRTH. 

of things invisible of which we speak so freely and 
so carelessly even — all is right here. 

Sometimes men say, when their friends pass on, 
Ah ! gone, gone, never to return! The golden howl 
broken! the silver cord sundered! life's schemes 
mercilessly brought to wreck and disaster! But is 
this wisdom? One nature touching another nature, 
one life breeding itself in another life, one world 
down here infiguring itself in the soul, but to be ex- 
figured there — is this the end and finish of life? 
Never. Death is birth. We pass on to promotion. 
There is only a resurrection in the transit, only new 
birth, the quickening powers of that higher nature 
of God vitalizing the higher powers of our nature. 
Life never ends. Life's work is never done. The 
grand organic life of God and the world of the trans- 
lated, seizing the life of our nature, by its gales of 
inspiration sets the soul to rolling up its tides of un- 
broken being to roll on for ever. Don't the angels 
get heart? Are they not greatened every time one 
awakens and turns from the error of his ways ? And 
may we not say truly that the infinite Soul comes to 
satisfaction reaped in no other way than from the tra- 
vail that brings us onward, through all the stresses 
of the ascension, to the rest and finish that re- 
maineth ? 

Angels help on the great Divinepurposes to-day. 
Thousands of rays reflected from the burning throne, 
send down their summer warmth into the sleeping 
germs of immortality, quickening them to growth ; 

countless messages flash from the world of translated 

17 N 



104 MAN'S NATURE DEVELOPED BY COD'S. 

and victorious life, athwart the dreary and waiting 

waste of our nature here, starting hope and faith from 
their slumbers, and setting them towards the city of 
God. The great world of organized life there, is 
potent upon the human world here to move it. Life 
comes down and plants itself in all its dearness in 
the heart-life here; and thus humanity lives anew and 
rises and enters into the great confirmations. 

Deeper and deeper, then, go down into your own 
nature; for only as you do that, will you go deeper 
into God's nature. Down at the very bottom of your 
own humanity, sleeps the image of the Father. What 
you want to-day, is to awaken and brighten and de- 
velop it. Do you not know r that there is no way of 
knowing God except through knowing yourself? A 
mere smattering or superficial acquaintance with 
one's own deep soul, is a mere smattering of God- 
knowledge and of salvation. In the human depths 
are the germs of immortality that need quickening. 
Buried there are beauties and wondrous nobilities 
ju^t budding out, that need the summer warmth to 
encourage and mature them. Sometimes, indeed, 
they seem to be crushed by the rude feet of careless- 
5, and to perish in their birth. But the great truth 
stands, that no human blossom ever turned itself to 
God, that did not thrill the life — communication 
ht from Him — down to the very roots of faith 
and power. There i- a great deal of perishing, a 
great deal of decaying, even when these germs are 
actually quickened into life and beauty. The old is 
left to perish, even as it is in the order of nature. 



v/v' in - 195 

1 1h- greater part of the coin of wheat decays, to help 
the germ into life and growth. The one will decrease, 
the other will increase. In the depths of your nature 

you must search for all beauty, all grace, all manhood, 
all womanho >d. Sweetness is born there, and the 
charm of blessedness. Nothing lofty is built of other 
material. 

O, the depths in us ! 1 low they need to be stirred ! 
How they need to be quickened ! Sometimes God 
has to smite and rend the tough integument of the 
super-incumbent matter, that light and warmth may 
be let down into man's torpor. How the rudiments 
in him need to be quickened! 1 low they need to be 
born again! How they lose who live a surface life — 
much in thought, more in heart — unspeakably in 
spiritual power ! How unsaved we are ; how un- 
awakened ! No man can afford to live a day or 
even an hour in this world, unconsciously buried 
beneath the sod of his nativity. No man can 
afford to die thus, unawakened to a sense of higher 
things. 

Here, briefly, is the problem of our whole being — 
the problem of our nature. Right here is our life- 
work. Exactly here is the matter of our religion, 
and here will read the record of our success or our 
failure. Draw aside the veil and anticipate the read- 
ing ! The bells will ring out the proclamation as the 
verdict issues. Will they ring jubilees, triumphs, 
striking the great concords of memory and hope ? or 
will they chime dirges, and requiems, and laments ? 
Memory will live; will its under-chant be hope? 



ic/> MAN'S NATURE DEVELOPED BY GOD 

Now is the reconciling time; now is the day of 
salvation. 

May (iod from heaven be the Divine quickening 
upon our nature, and may the wisdom that is from 
above make us wise unto salvation. In that we save 
ourselves through trustworthy fidelity in this summer 
husbandry of our nature, lies the God-given passport 
to heaven. 



XIII. 

A SUFFERING CHRIST IN NORMAL ACCORD 
WITH NATURE AND REASON 

A man of n ■' acquainted i 

aiah liii. 3, 

THESE words are supposed by many to point, 
prophetically, directly to Jesus Christ. The 
whole chapter is regarded as a grand vista through 

which faith beholds Him. 

Many others look upon the passage as an outburst 
of Jewish aspiration, a gush of mingled memory and 
hope, bursting out of their sorrow and sighing, to- 
gether with a passionate hungering for deliverance 
and the coming of God and their national fortune. 

Do you ask me to sit as umpire between these two 
opinions ? I must decline. I do not know so much 
about these things as many pretend to know. But 
if you will go into the New Testament, you will find 
all through that book, from the teachings of the 
evangelists, from the teachings of Christ Himself and 
the apostles, the great truth that He was a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief. 

There is no mistaking this. We do not like to 

hear about this matter of sorrow always ; and it is 

well that we do not. We are prone to brush up and 

burnish the old rusty spots, and with our wands 

sweep the heavens, until we see nothing but bright- 
17* 197 



UjS A > IRIXG CHRIST REASONABl 

aess, and conclude that shadows arc a mere phantom, 
a defect of our own vision most likely, having no 
foundatlOQ in reality. But the stubborn fact is, suf- 
fering, grief and sorrow are not shadows of things, 
but things themselves. It is true, also, that they are 
set down in the Divine order of wisdom, love and 
power, written by a light in which there is no dark- 
- at all. The simple truth is, this world of ours 
can no more do without heart-ache, than it can do 
without heart-ecstasy. And a man can never be a 
man without sorrow and suffering, any more than he 
can be a complete man without emancipation from 
sorrow and suffering. Why, the very heart of God 
is obliged to wade through conscious distress, that it 
may come, bright and dripping from the passage, into 
conscious deliverance and fruition of joy. There is 
a satisfaction to the Divine soul that comes only 
through its travail. But we must leave the general 
statement. 

I have three propositions to enunciate just here: 
First: If Jesus Christ stood the representative of 
God and humanity that he claimed to be, and all the 
streams of history poured their turbulent contents into 
his bosom; and if he stood also as a fountain from 
which throbbed the mingled streams of prophetic lift 
— victory as well as suffering — then it is the most 
natural tiling in the world that He should have been 
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 

We need not worry ourselves to link this fact to 
some miraculous, supernatural voucher or vouching. 
It is the most rational thing in the world, if Christ 






CHRIST CAME TO WORK ON MAN, (<£ 

was what He claimed to he, that He should have 
been a raan of sorrow and acquainted with grief; for 
wh.it is all history but a fight, ending in victor}' or 
defeat ? What is all history but a strife parturient, 
a grand life imprisoned and unborn, seeking deliver- 
ance and a crown ? Nothing but that. And the jar 
and the terrible perturbations of humanity in all the 
pre-Christ ages, deposited their gathered tremors in 
Him, if his claims were true. And if they were true, 
the same economy of providence sweeps over the 
future that covers the past, and the central Fountain 
stands throbbing out this mingled power of joy and 
sorrow, the elements of conflict and the vouchers of 
victory, all through the unveiled centuries to come. 
It is the most natural thing in the world that a being 
who really was and is what Christ claimed to be, 
should be one of sorrow and acquainted with grief. 
That is the first proposition. 

The next is: If Christ, with all his claims, be in 
this world no impostor, but a true, genuine being, 
having come for the sake of working 7/pou man, and 
making mankind different and better, and not for 
the sake of working upon God, and effecting some 
enabling status in the Divine Governor and govern- 
ment of the universe, then it is the most natural thing 
in the world that He should have been, and should 
be, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 

Assuming him to have come for the benefit of 
humanity, and not for the benefit of Divinity ; to have 
come bringing the power of God to make you differ- 
ent from what you are, and not for the expending of 



200 a iik 1st ri \son //>'/./•:. 

his own power to make God different from what He 
was or is. it is the most natural thing in the world — 
the most natural thing conceivable — that He should 
have been a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. 
For, according to his own showing and according to 
God's showing, it was for simply this that He came, 
to bring the heart-ache of God into the world for the 
world's good. Jesus Christ is the divine importa- 
tion of that spell and stress of paternal interest, 
which is the very life-power, when you feel it, of 
salvation in the soul. He came on a suffering errand ; 
] le came on a sorrowing embassy; He came to make 
you and me sorrowful after the fashion of the Father's 
sorrow. He came for that; and, putting it all inclu- 
sively, lie of course came for nothing else. And 
when the element of divine sorrow over human dere- 
liction, and divine yearning over human imperfec- 
tion, becomes an ingredient and fact of character in 
your experience and mine, then the Divine heart 
lias seen of the travail of its soul, and is satisfied. 

Now, then, we ought by the reason to know, at 
this age of the world, that there is no such thing as 
handling the moral problem through whose solution 
man's nature is wrought upward, without suffering. 
You never can come into any good short of the cost 
of it. There can be no such thing as a resurrection 
that is not written and enacted in the very elements 
of death and victory over death. There can be no 
such thing as new birth, or higher birth, whose cer- 
titude is not vouched for in the pangs that produce 
it. Here is the secret of that high necessity. When 



DEATH THL 201 

mow is past, then joy becomes multiplied. So it 
Stands a matter of simple necessity, a matter of sim- 
ple rationality, that one who would bring God into 

an imperfect world and lift an imperfect world God- 
ward, must be a power that has heart in it, and a 
heart that is capable of aching. Such the secret that 
is hidden, the distinctive essence in the root of the 
Gospel. So much for the second proposition — for 
I must be brief. 

My third proposition is : That if Christ, being what 
He claimed to be, stood as the vital link between tivo 
worlds ^ a connecting artery between the life that now 
is and the life that is to come, it is the most natural 
thing conceivable that He should have been a being 
of sorrow and acquainted with grief. 

For you know the way that we get out of one into 
the other, is through terrible aching. The way we 
pass out of life into life, from the lower to the up- 
ward, is by the dark gateway, through withering 
flowers, through vanishing melodies, through the 
way of scentless bowers, of fading beauties, of dying 
cadences, and all the mortal ecstasies that traverse 
our nature here. And what is this but dying? 
Dying — getting out of a world of death! What is 
dying but being born? And what is being born, 
immortally, but just verifying the vital connection 
between the two worlds ? He, then, who assumes 
to stand as that fact and that power, needs indeed to 
be fraught with the whole significance of it. He 
needs to have occulted himself beneath the darkness 
of death ; he needs to have come from the rending 



202 A SUFFERING CHRIS1 ABLE. 

tomb of our nature, to have been buried in our na- 
ture and to have generated resurrection there. I am 
simply saying this great truth implies sorrow, suffer- 
ing, tears. 

Look out upon May. The harshest winds in all 
the year are spring winds. They put their raw, un- 
gentle hands upon the harps within us, and these 
harps are chilled to silence; they sing no more. 
They issue their rough decrees, and life seems to 
wilt and wither; while all the time their meaning is, 
to nurture such frail things as fill this vase unto 
courage to bloom. Spring, the grandest season of 
all the year; spring, the very advent of God in sky 
and earth, always in sorrow and affliction stands by 
the bedside at Nature's birth. 

Just so in religion. It always was so, and always 
will be so; hence no strange thing. It is a natural 
thing. We need not be troubled about arguing for 
or against supcrnaturalism or miracles. I never 
spent thirty minutes in that sort of intellectual 
amusement. A barren exercise this of pecking at 
the supernatural. Men may pile up as many folios 
as they please through the ages, and I will not pick 
a flaw in one of them. Still, the great truth against 
which they assume to argue shall live on, and throb 
on, and throb for ever; for it is founded originally 
in the nature of things. And the nature of things, or 
whatever rests in the nature of things, is reasonable. 
Whatever is founded in the nature of things, is 
among the most inevitable things in the world. 
Therefore, I say, for these reasons and others that 1 






THE ID I 

might add, it is the most natural thing in the world 
that the Christ of God should be .1 man of sorrow 
and acquainted with grief. 

Ah! says ^nc, so much grief, so much sorrow in 
a religion of joy! I thought when I got into the 

-pel, or the >el into me, I had got done 

aching; no more anguish, nothing more of pain. I 
thought Christ came into the world to ache for me, 
whispers a sensitive demurrer. That is the old whis- 
per, Ache for me that I need not ache at all; and 
my praises are due to Him that He did n't quail and 
that I got rid of all trouble, lie taking it as my sub- 
stitute. Yes, that is the idea of great multitudes. 
Whereas, the true idea of Christly suffering is the 
idea of a life persistence, as held for the time being in 
the thrall of imprisonment and restraint, and in the 
battle of death. The idea of suffering is the idea of 
persistence of life, greater than any contradiction that 
can meet or assail it; an idea that there is something 
in life superior to anything that can antagonize life, 
and that it will come at last to self-assertion and 
self-crowning. Take a homely illustration. A boy 
of twelve or thirteen aches from mere growth, as the 
persistence of his physical life fights the battle out 
of raw immaturity into the victory of manly strength. 
Ever is it the consciousness of having done wrong, 
that makes one ache out of wrong into right. The 
capacity for normal sorrow as normal life, treads the 
ascending pathway; the capacity for abnormal sorrow 
as it forsakes the ascending and turns to the down- 
ward grade, is repentance. Here lies the idea of the 
sorrow element in the economy of the world. 



204 A SUFFERING CHRIST REASONABLE. 

These are the truths we ought to celebrate to-day. 
We shrink and grow less and less every time we 
keep the sacrament as if it were the celebration of a 
Suffering Christ who suffered in our place that we 
might live without suffering. It is when you fill up 
" what remains " of the sufferings of Christ, it is when 
you repeat them for the very ends for which they 
were taken and endured by Him, that the promise is 
yours. These great world truths should ring from 
us to-day. We should take these simply as a flag, 
and float it heaven-high, emblazoned with the mot- 
toes, Love, Sorrow, Victory. It should blaze with 
these powers and inspirations. This is what we 
should unfurl it for to-day. 

The communion season, at least for 1500 years 
of Christendom, has been regarded as a fence 
separating one class of people from another; the 
great divisive or partition wall to keep men apart ; 
the assumption being, that those on one side are 
better and more like God than those on the other. 
They ought to be, certainly ; if there is any justice 
in the separation they must be. But to be like God 
is to be very different from most of us. To be like 
God is to be possessors of grand inspirations, and 
grand principles, and powers, and virtues, and truths. 
It is to be the possessors of noble characters. It is 
to be the holders of grand personal forces, able to 
propagate themselves in the world far» and wide, 
farthering its redemption. 

This communion service, rightly viewed, is not 
meant to divide but to bring the world together. 



THE CHRISTIAN i 205 

It docs not care a straw what human church you 
belong to. It docs QOt care a withered leaf what 
creed commands your name. It cares not an iq 

human speculations. This symbol should be 
taken and lifted aloft by every soul belonging to 
the spiritual church of God. I don't say it is im- 
possible for you to belong to the spiritual church 
of God unless you are a member of my church, or 
my neighbor's church, or some other church. Ex- 
ternally you may belong to no church. You must 
take all that responsibility yourself. The question 
is whether you belong to God's church, which is 
somewhat larger than yours or mine ; whether you 
have taken these great pow r ers and inspirations of 
conflict and victory, of character-making and Christ- 
making, into your humanity; whether they throb in 
your bosom, and are enthroned in regency in your 
life. If they are, then all other questions are 
secondary, and you belong to God's church. Very 
careful, therefore, should he be, whether Papal or 
Protestant usurper, who puts an exscinding hand upon 
you, if you belong to God's church. 

I think this communion season should bring 
churches together, so far as they are worth any- 
thing. Churches may excommunicate each other, 
declaring no church is God's church but mine; but 
the moment we do that we cease to be Christians, 
and become pharisees and bigots. We drop Chris- 
tianity and take up schism. We may say this man 
or that man is a Judas. But that don't make him 

so — nor unmake him if he is. Man is not com- 
18 



206 A SUFFERING Of* 1ST REASONABLE. 

missioned for such work. Somebody else had better 

tli.it stone. Judases never stay long at the 
communion. The atmosphere is uncongenial; they 
always go out and hang themselves. Nothing is 
to be feared from open, broad communion of all 
churches. God's way is to leave men free; to pour 
.n light and life upon them, and leave the rest to 
their responsibility. 

This gr^at matter of religion is working down un- 
derneath and out of sight. A great many of you I 
meet from day to day, who are called outsiders — on 
the other side of the fence. You don't come in here; 
you say we will not let you come. And there is 
some truth, I suppose, in what you say. You hold 
up this testimony that we have in print here, the 
Greed and the Manual. Well, you have more re- 
spect a great many times for what is printed here, 
than we have for what you think is printed here. If 
you would just take our meaning of it you. would be 
wiser. If you are a real Christ man or Christ woman, 
you belong to the great church of God ; and you 
have no right to take your portion and hide it in 
your bosom or under your bed. We have no right 
to live here in Milwaukee in a religious and gospel 
civilization, caring not an iota for India, or Persia, or 
anything else. I excuse myself a great deal, and I 
excuse you; for we have been taught greatly a re- 
ligion of selfishness. And yet we must remember 
that any man in the church or outside the church, 
who will do right and tell the truth because he is 
afraid he will be punished if he does not, will bear 



I \7> <</• UAVi 207 

It is just so with religion, through and 
through. 

A man who wants to be good, pivoting on the 

motive of reward and punishment, could not be 
trusted out of sight of heaven's police were that 
motive taken from him. We ought to know- that 
goodness 1 for goodness' sake. 1 should 

tell the truth, not because I shall smart if I don't. 
Falseness should be ashamed unto death inside, 
though there should be no lash in the universe out- 
side. If I am false, there is a terrible acid and blister 
working its penal results. Man should be beautiful 
in himself. I don't want to be doomed for ever to 
gaze into the looking-glass where things are not 
beautiful. I want to round out into true proportion 
and symmetry of being. Just be manly and womanly, 
and take these grand inspirations of the gospel as 
the earth is taking the sunshine, then you will begin 
to bloom, and be pure and beautiful in soul. 

Be actuated by such motives, and the church of 
God will break down the partition-walls and bring 
men together; and the crown of their cJiaracter, of 
their rightness, of their worth in God's sight, shall 
be the badge of distinction and the bond of union. 
Then we can unite in the long pull and the strong 
pull of moral forces, and the world will come to- 
gether. 

O for an abrogation of mere technical Christians, 
Christians by courtesy, Christians by position, like 
ciphers at the right hand of significant integers ! 
O for the coming of the meat and marrow of 



208 . / . 1IRIST RE. tSi WABZ /:. 

things, for so we shall be judged at last This is 
not disintegrating, it is integrating truth, Christ and 

life; it is construction, the very breeding of God in 

the garden of our humanity. 

Keep mellow ; keep tender. You never like to see 
a hard man or a hard woman. No man is the worse 
for being woman-hearted; no woman is the worse 
for being strong in that strength which nerves the 
very heart of Deity. Keep mellow, keep tender in 
soul. If you study the Bible, do not study it under 
those theories that make you wiry, bony or dry. 
You may find a great deal of fault with it. There is 
a great deal in it that doubtless would not have been 
there had the Bible been written a hundred years 
But don't go to it with the carping and flip- 
pancy that leaves you like a dead dissected bird, 
songless as an epitaph. Keep clear of all that. 
Keep the bud in your nature warm and juicy and 
open. Then the very atmosphere of the Bible will be 
full of life-giving moisture, and feed you with its 
great stimulation. The first you know you will be 
blooming, and the next you will be bearing fruit. 
Men sometimes go at the Bible as a woodpecker 
goes at trees, only to find the worms. You will only 
be worm-fed if you do so. 

Don't peck at Christians either; they are poor 
Feeding enough. It is not well to whet appetites on 
the evils of mankind. They make diseased blood. 
Turn to the great model, the church spiritual, the 
Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all. 
Greaten your nature and your conceptions of what 



T AND VICTORY. 209 

is noble and charitable ami true. ( tae of th< 

rrow in the world is to keep its heart uw- 
dcr and great. We all know that joy is not perfected 

until it is brewed over the fire of grief Sorrow dies 
in its culmination ; after that conies the bloom of 
tsy. The last conflict is victory. Be gentle and 
you will be mighty. The more deeply human, the 
more deeply divine and godly will you be. 

Embosom these truths in your confidence ; broaden 
your life and deepen aspiration from their great life 
and power. God is down here among the fading 
Sowers and the dying embers of life, to retint vanish- 
ing hues and relume the brightness that fades into 
shadow. Sorrow and grief are among the heavenly 
mordants that prepare the soul for the fast colors of 
glory, and help God to paint His name in it in letters 

living, indelible, immortal. 
18* O 



XIV. 

UNION OF SPIRIT OVER MATTER. 

he prayed. the' fashion of his countenance 
was changed, — Luke ix. 29. 

THERE is a truth here — in this simple language 
— of deep and wondrous beauty. It shines out 
like a star on the face of night, or the glowing sun 
from behind his cloud-screens. Fire from heaven 
had come down and been kindled in its alabaster 
vase. Another glory beams out through the thin 
transparency, timeward. Light permeates the wall 
from within the temple. The vail itself is set aflame. 
Of course we recognize in the text the scene of 
the Transfiguration. Many theories and speculations 
have been indulged in, respecting the nature and 
design of this marvelous incident in the life of the 
Saviour, but into these we care not to enter. About 
such facts, fancy has ever been, and ever will be, 
busy. Standing upon the boundary line, where the 
natural and the supernatural touch, the reason and 
imagination of man find themselves in a twilight 
where the costumes of fiction are very apt to person- 
ate sober fact, and all visions to stand at fault in the 
clear light of day. Men have put a great main' things 
into the Bible that never had an existence even out- 
side of it; and have drawn a great many things out 
of it that were never in it. Much of what has been 

210 



a: /: 211 

ught into what is called the hire of 

Christendom, will vanish when the sun shines by 

and by; >\nA no small portion of what men are 

pleased to call established scientific theology, will 

i into forgetful n s the mind of the world 

rises towards the zenith of its illumination. We 
should always be careful about anchoring to the past ; 
it is raw, crude, and prevents growth. To iv 
the merely accidental and provisional asp 

truth as truth itself, is to mistake the chips of the 
workman for the statue or temple he fashioned. We 
can often get the spirit and inspiration of a subject 
long before we get the form. This is always the 

order of life; it clothes itself in its own form. Life 
is, from necessity, form-giving ; but form is never 
life-giving. Therefore if we take the form first we 
get nothing but death. This is the curse of art and 
the grave of genius. But nowhere is formalism so 
dead' and damaging to the soul as in religion. 

We may say, however, this much with confidence, 
that in this scene of the transfiguration we have God 
set forth in the midst of the human race ; a theophany 
wherein everything appears really carried into effect, 
which human fancy, springing from the real longings 
of the human soul, has arrayed in mystic forms, and 
thrown as a beauteous garb around the histories of 
other nations. All mythology is but the stammer- 
ing of a true longing of the soul ; a religious neces- 
sity, seeking to incarnate itself in the spectral shades 
of mere natural twilight. Without revelation the 
world worships the " unknown God." In the Bible 



212 DOMINION 01 SPIRI2 OVER MATTER. 

where God clearly declares Himself, in the incarnate 
Word, transfigured, crucified, resurgent, glorified, 
these longings are met — legitimately met Here 
are the great answers to the questions bom in man 
by nature. Every picture in the Bible means some- 
thing; every event is heavy with significance which 

our life stands in need of. All the gorgeous sym- 
bolism there, couches a glory or a gloom counter- 
stated in us. And while we may not take the image 
for the thing, or the letter for the spirit, still the potent 
significance therein we may receive, and take it as a 
life which shall reclothe itself, through our experience, 
in garments of life and crowns of life. 

The truth underlying the text, and upon which 1 
would fix attention at this time, is far enough removed 
from all speculative and obsolete considerations, lying 
directly within our practical life. It takes us into 
some of the loftiest ranges of the soul's capabilities, 
and is at the foundation of all genuine and best cul- 
ture. I refer to the power which all high and com- 
manding themes have, taking possession of the soul, 
to manifest themselves in the character, asserting the 
dominion of spirit over matter, subjecting body to 

soul. 

And the intimate connection of soul and body is 
first thing we have to observe. As he prayed, 
the fashion of his countenance was changed — changed 
to a glow, lighted up, kindled. This was from no 
OUtWard illumination, a borrowed light reflected from 
the surface. The lamp was inside. A fire was burn- 
ing behind the transparency. There was a glory-lit 



77/. i THE SOUL. 

lion of soul, deeper than the face, shining out 
through the face, which consumed everything in its 
own lustre, subjecting even physical functions to its 

own uses, There was a law within mightier than 
the law without ; the sceptre of spirit flashing in the 
realm oi matter; an orb of glory shooting up its 
kindling rays over the hills of nature, and filling the 

mental atmosphere with dawn and daybreak eternal. 
It was the dominion of soul over body. 

The next thing we notice is the fitness of the one 
to be a revelation of the other. The face is the lan- 
guage of the soul; looks translate consciousness. It 
because his soul was on lire that the fashion of 
his countenance was changed. The intimate con- 
nection between body and spirit, that enabled the 
conscious artist within to flash out its kindling visions 
through clay, and paint the shifting sceneries of the 
soul in the countenance, was asserted on Mount 
Tabor. 

This is what we may know and see and feel in every 
hour of our life. The face mirrors the thought ; sen- 
timent kindles in the eye; storm looms and lowers 
on the brow ; fear trails its shadow there, and hope 
sits like a sunrise. The countenance translates the 
mystic meanings of the life within. The face is a 
telegraph full* of messages from the spirit world. 
The lines and phases and variations of expression 
we wear, are but the changes of the fashions, the 
wardrobes, gorgeous or meagre, of the feelings and 
fancies and moods that play themselves off within 
us. They are the windows through which the 



2 14 DOMINIi X (7- sr VER MATTER. 

ers-by outside look in and behold the changing 

t md shift >f the ever busy, hurrying 

drama, ever playing but never played, on the stage 

of the world within us. 

I low grand is this tact, especially in stn >ng, stormy, 

emotional states. When the Jupiter of the soul 
gathers clouds about him, how grandly sits wrath 
enthroned, muttering from inward thunders. The 
countenance can look an earthquake when anger and 
indignation put fire and water together down in the 
nether deeps of man's nature. The face is a tempest 
when the soul is stung by outrage, meanness and 
wrong ; it is a boiling sea, a volcano. To-day you 
meet your friend in tranquil mood; the fashion of 
his look is serene and gentle as the summer evening. 
Beauty fills his soul, and sweetness and joy. To- 
morrow there is a cloud on him. The air of his eye 
is murky and heavy; blackness is everywhere, thun- 
ders are behind it. His soul is charged with sul- 
phurous energies. A tempest is brewing; there is a 
storm in his spirit, and all the imagery of look and 
expression and bearing tell you so, and seem to say, 
Beware! They are soul revelations of the mastery 
pirit over body. 
How instantly sudden news, if it break the spell 
of long suspense with the note of gladness, will wipe 
out the night shadows and flood the face with morn- 
ing glories; just as, on the other hand, if no hope 
come and the note be a knell, how will the same 
countenance droop into the drapery of the grave, 
and beauty dwell there m eye nor lip nor tone. 



'RITUAL PHOTOGRAPHY, 21 5 

The outward appearance from day to day and 
from year to year, as our life Hows on in all its con- 
nected changes, is but a panorama of the soul, the 
mtaneous photography oi its vicissitudes, a long 

continued mnemonic gallery of the varying lights and 
shades and plots and scenic processions, of the s! 

less and endless life within us. What history, what 
biography, annals how grand, poems, pictures, monu- 
ments, emblems wreathed with hope, and veiled 
epitaphs, legends of the heart, and silence, would all 
this record make, which a man builds up through 
the years God gives him. Yes: we are painting 
on canvas that shall outlast the face; we are chis- 
eling on tablets, and carving on pillars, that shall 
endure when marble and brass are turned to dust. 

But it is due that we notice with special attention, 
in connection with the truth we are now considering, 
the power and function of Prayer. For it was as the 
Saviour prayed, the record runs, that this glory came 
upon him. 

It is probably no infraction of the laws of charity, 
certainly not the intimation of any, to say that, in the 
true and full sense of the word, only a few ever pray. 
Prayer is born of the soul, as streams are of foun- 
tains, or as ecstasies and agonies are of the heart. 
They cry out, or sing, of the deep within us. A 
prayer can never come out of the soul until it is first 
in it. First the consciousness, then the word that 
utters it. You cannot begin with words first, unless 
they are borrowed words. But these will be only as 
the dead leaves and dried roses of last year's stems. 



2l6 DOMINION OF SPIRIT OVER MATTER. 

You cannot use a prayer twice, any more than you 
can make a flower bloom twice. Even the Lord's 
Prayer was for the spirit of it, showing the manner 
of spirit we should be of, not the manner of words ; 
just a$ Paul said he was a minister of the New Tes- 
tament, not of the letter but of the spirit. The letter 
is dead. When a soul comes to God directly and 
puts itself into vital connection with Ilim, without 
any intervention of priest, altar, sacrifice, or word, 
then the soul becomes charged with God and gives 
off its sparks in words. The fire of his nature warms 
it up, kindles it, and it begins to burn and bloom, 
and sing or sorrow; and these manifestations are its 
prayer. But you cannot begin with words and get 
the fire out of them into you. Words are nothing 
but ashes that are left after the live coal within is 
Consumed, the result and not the means of prayer. 
We go to God not to say things, but to be kindled 
by Ilim ; not to communicate information, but to get 
inspiration out of Him ; not to induce Him to change 
his purposes, but to get his purposes into us; never 
to bind Him, or obligate Him, or obstruct or even 
help Ilim, but evermore to say, " Thy will be done." 
If men w r ould pray in the Christly way, they would 
come to Christly experience. The fashion of their 
countenance would be changed. They would 
come to transfigurations of soul and manhood, and 
glow with inward revelations. Words never trans- 
figure man. Transfigurations come from thoughts, 
from feelings, from exaltations. They come from 
things spiritual, unseen, and eternal; from what has 



\CY 02 

to awaken the soul, to fire the heart, to kindle 
intellect! to rouse the conscience, to warm the 

sentiments, stimulate devotion, ami lilt the whole 

being through a glow of mighty urgency, tow aid the 

Source of all life. Transfigurations that foreshadow 
nsions, must come from the powers of the world 
beyond Visions from the face of the All-beauteous 
unveiled must seize men, and a direct, conscious in- 
tercourse with God the Eternal be had, if they would 
be transformed and transfigured into the spirit of 
his own likeness, luminous with the prophecy of 
heaven. 

This is no dream; it is simply prayer. There is 
such a thing as the mind's losing itself in the infi- 
nite Mind. The human heart may yield itself to the 
bosom of the infinite Life and Lov.e, to be kept and 
cared for. Man's soul may just turn itself away 
from beholding vanities, and look towards its Maker, 
and enter into sympathetic intercourse with Him. 
And when it does, that will be faith and trust. Then 
it will be touched with the all-kindling ray and pulse 
of his being. And when this is done, the soul will 
pray. Prayer will be born of it. Man will be con- 
sciously lifted and filled, and God will shine down 
into him and through him. His soul will be changed 
in its spiritual look, and the radiance of the immortal 
countenance shall not be hid. 

Thus prayer ceases to be a constraint of duty, and 
becomes an ecstasy of desire. It is no longer an 
exercise in sacred literature, but a soul-passion be- 
fore God. It is a liberated impulse of heart, playing 
19 



il8 OMINIi WIT OVER MAT'IhR. 

in its utmost freedom; the glad, emancipated soul 
of the child, breathing its note of plaint or joy into 
the car of the listening Father. In a word, prayer is 
immortal hunger eating its own bread, and spiritual 
thirst drinking at the life-giving fountain whose re- 
freshing brinj stasy to the eye, and color to the 
face, and bloom to the lips of even the mortal aspect, 
clothing it with a visible and prophetic glory, whose 
consummations are beyond these clay shrines of 
earth. 

The power of prayer as an intellectual stimulant is 
very great. It will not solve problems in geometry, 
or give the sluggard daily bread without work. But 
the very act of prayer, if it be true prayer, throws 
the mind into the highest intellectual state as well 
as the deepest emotional. If you put the battery of 
the infinite brain to yours, why should n't it wake? 
The best prayers are always the best thinkers. For 
an intellect all alive with the Divine, Infinite Mind, 
will, of course, be intensely wakeful, living and richly 
productive. Prayer, of course, cannot paint a pic- 
ture ; but the soul of genius fired and set all aflame 
by inspirations from above itself, will be in the best 
condition to do anything. Up in the high region of 
prayer, immortal life shines upon the thought sum- 
mits, and they are warmed down to the very roots. 
Summer gales come sweeping over the tropical 
land of the mind, and hidden life blooms out of it. 
rnity sings in the heart, and new-born joy blushes 
(»n all the face of life, and man is glorified when he 
praj 



219 

Tins is the preparation which all true nun seek 
when they have any great work to do. When Mof 

nmuned with God in the Mount, he cam-; down 
shining in face. It made Paul another being, when, 
in the heavenly exaltation, things were revealed to 

him which he could not tell. And apostles and 
martyrs have felt, in the rapt moods of all days, this 
Stimulating force upon their minds for their work. 

Reason boasts of its independence of prayer some- 
times, but it is a vain boast. As well might the 

nl earth boast of independence of the sun in 
heaven. Intellect withers and freezes without this 
replenishing life and fire from Above. 

But nowhere more than in the closet does this 
truth we are discussing assert itself. Many a hidden 
sanctuary is a Tabor. The devout soul in the closet 
understands this. Could mortal eye look in, when 
the door is shut, while some sainted soul is far up 
on its light-seeking errands, glory would be signalled 
in the countenance of the worshiper, and daybreak 
of other worlds. In no hour is the true man so 
serene in face, so tranquil, balanced, exalted and 
strong, as when he comes from the hidings of the 
inner life where God has been sought in communion. 
It is grand for man to be alone on the mountains 
with God a little while in the morning, before plung- 
ing into the rush of the day. He who never knows 
solitude will never reach true greatness. Man must 
be alone sometimes, or die. In retreats of mental 
loneliness and heart isolation, our sensibilities flood 
up into the purest light, and catch the radiance that 
gilds the prospect of heaven. 



220 DOMINION 01 SPIRIT OVER MATTER. 

But touching the power of prayer, it must be re- 
marked that it is in the stressful hours of the soul, 
when it is in straits, when a world hangs upon it and 
it is pressed by some mighty urgency of impending 
woe, that prayer has its greatest power. God is 
t to us when most needed, in times of heart- 
break, when we go down into the valley all alone, 
and the world is sunless. Then He seems to come 
and break over the barriers that wall Him off from 
our spirits, and leaps down into the heart of our 
intercessions, rolling away the mountains, lifting the 
clouds, and swallowing up all the old night of despair 
in the fresh brightness of his presence. Prayer then 
becomes a transfiguration that converts even death 
into a revelation. The vale of darkness becomes a 
Tabor, and the drapery of the grave an ascension 
robe. Thousands have emerged from their prisons 
singing, and gone up with radiant look in chariots of 
flame. Thus it was with Christ when he strengthened 
himself for his hour. His soul was in transfigura- 
tions while a world hung upon him. In that night 
of darkness God tented, and a glory was lit there 
from beyond all veils. 

Somehow it seems to be ordered that no face shall 
shine sweetest till the shadows have passed over it. 
These prepare it for the higher burnishing. Sweet- 
est tones are born of complaining discords. God 
and heaven come to us through the cross. The 
scenery of the natural heavens is never so grand as 
when hung with dark convolutions of cloud-drapery, 
when the sun is behind, shooting his radiance through 



GOO/) SOULS MAK 

the Folds, a\\<\ kindling it all into burning throne 
>ries oi >hire and gold. So with the soul in 

the spiritual clouds. If God can come into it then, 
its sky is transfigured, it is a burning temple. .And 

prayer is the torch that can kindle that flame. 

Hut let us advance a little for a different view. 
The truth we are considering is not limited to the 
sphere of prayer, technically so designated, When- 
ever any great and glorious subject takes hold of the 
mind powerfully, it is of the nature of things that it 
should be lifted to higher planes of light and force. 
High intellectual pursuits report themselves in the 
bearing and manners of men. The general aspect 
of life is their revelation. The atmosphere about 
such lives is surcharged with latent meaning. As a 
general thing, men who think best look best, behave 
best, enjoy themselves best. A good soul makes a 
good countenance. A fine, intelligent spirit, with 
the fires of intellect burning inside, will light up 
plain features and make even homely ones comely. 
Cosmetics will not do this, but thought will, beauti- 
ful sentiment will. Fine and lofty feelings will glow 
there as gold in sunsets and purple in dawns. The 
vernal fires blazing within will keep bloom outside 
and keep off wrinkles better than the sorceries of 
the toilet, and send the violets blooming down 
beneath the snow-crust of years. I have often 
wondered that the beauty-loving passion of our race 
did not take more pains to plant the seeds of im- 
mortal youth where they would be most likely to 

live and give back their verdure and bloom peren- 

19 * 



222 DOMINI SPIRIT OVER MATTER. 

nially. The greatest thing God ever made of clay, 
is the human countenance. Sometimes it is nothing 
to look at of itself, cast in no model of symmetry, 
grace or majesty. Like porcelain transparence, such 
may present neither comeliness nor meaning of them- 
selves. But let the fires be kindled on the other 
side, put the light behind the transparency, start the 
flame in the candlestick of the soul, and lo ! all is 
transfigured in a moment. The clay becomes glori- 
fied. Beauty that is fadeless beams and trembles in 
every line, and glows in magic tracery on the veil. 

The fine moods of genius are all fulfilments of this 
law. It flings its inspirations outward. Here the 
soul is artist, incarnating ideals. Milton's face was a 
thousand times a poem. Beethoven's symphony and 
Raphael's transfiguration the canvas never caught, 
while his of Patmos was a New Jerusalem come down 
out of heaven from God. The fashion of the coun- 
tenance may be the grandest rehearsal of inward 
glories. It is every one's duty to keep such a fashion. 
Some inspiration should be shining out all the time. 
God made the countenance to be a reminder of Him- 
self. It should speak or sing or glow from some 
spark struck from its Maker, that the night side of the 
veil may hold the promise of morning. 

Even the ravages of time maybe stayed to a good 
extent by the high dominion of spirit over body. It 
is not needful that souls grow old. Strong fire may 
burn upon wintry hearths, and the bud and bloom of 
immortal youth may be putting forth from the in- 
terior, while even the outward husk is dropping 



THE FACE MEANS ( • A'. 

v. Time will make the veil only more trans- 
nt if we say so. The brightest glories may be 

mirrored at last 

Thus have we turned the phases of our many-sided 
theme. One thing stands foremost : Tin soul is king; 
the mind is the man. Whatever is Uppermost ifl 

character is apt to be conspicuous in life and behavior, 
and will name us when life and all appearances 
are done. What were these bodies, the finest look 
flashing with nameless wonder, were they not the 
spirit's shrine? What but a casket without a jewel, 
dark lanterns, lumps of clay, fireless shadows ! 

The face, then, means character. The general 
aspect and bearing, the air and expression which fix 
the individuality of the man, are determined by the 
thoughts that populate fiis brain, the feelings that 
animate his heart. This does not mean to contra- 
vene the general statement that appearances may 
deceive, but to affirm the truth that the general at- 
mosphere of one's personality is determined by the 
character of his inner life. Strong purposes outline 
themselves in the features; strong passions burn and 
cut their deep channels where lines of beauty ought 
to curve. And how gross and grovelling propensities 
trail their muddy records where signals of glory 
ought to be flying; while care furrows and discontent 
wrinkles the brow of life, and vanity flutters her tell- 
tale signals in every breeze. Just as, on the other 
hand, calm sereneness on the summer sky, light on 
the distant hills, tell us how beautiful feelings repose 
in human looks. Sweetness and serenity of spirit 



22 \ D( WIN) ' SPIRIT I 7: R MA ITER. 

lave the countenance with the hues of other worlds. 

All beauty dethroned within, makes the outward 
temple a ruin — a wreck and chaos. Beauty lit, and 

her lamp burning at the centre, throws out her 
luminous shadows all around, outlining a temple 
imperishable. 

At any rate, there is a glory which man reaches 
oily by the pathway of highest thoughts, those that 
are truest, noblest, most regal in themselves. Hence 
it is a sacred duty as it is a privilege abiding with 
every man, to live above himself, to keep the corn- 
pan}' and be under the draft of endeavors and aspi- 
rations self- transcending. This is the marvelous 
n of being. Upon just this ascension path Christ 
came to put us and lead us. Such is our nature, that 
unless we rise we incvitabl\*sink. God has made us 
expectant of new and perpetual morn. We glow in 
true lustre only as we near the purple gateways. If 
we turn the organ of spiritual vision downward to 
darkness, it perislu 

But just because our ascension path is a stairway 
of the highest, noblest thoughts, are we obliged to 
come at last to religious thoughts. There are no 
highest but these. No others take us on to a life 
above nature. These do. God is in them, and they 
are God in us. Here is immortality. All fire of 
soul that >hall not go out, emanates from this sun. 
The fadeless flowers of mind and heart bloom from 
the quickening touch of this summer life. No soul 
can live without religion. It will shrink and wither, 
and become lean and haggard and lost, untrans- 
red, 



77: 

And tin to th 

I with, viz.: the highest form of relij 
in c It was as he pra 

remember, that the fashion of his countenance 
was changed. Here is not only the soul's hur 
but its feeding, its reception and assimilation of the 
divine nurture. We come to banquets in this uplifted 
consciousness, into the tinted glories of and 

kick rays from the eternal Mind; v 
into the soul when we pray. I [ere is the mount ; 
here the truest transfiguration to us mortals here in 
time. 

But more grand and glorious than any fashion of 
countenance, more expressive than any mirrored 
>f thought or sentiment in the human face, 
is that embodiment of truth and power which is con- 
tained in the sum total of a good man's life. What 
we signify of soul and being in the connected ph. 
and changes that make up our moral probation, the 
finish of our manhood and womanhood, this is the 
great verdict of the question on trial. If life be 
divinely transfigured, then comes color to its earnest 
countenance, which the blood of cleansing meant to 
give. The soul beams forth in this great broad out- 
look, an earnest of the life to come. 

And then, when we come to think of it, how do 
we know but these countenances of time shall be 
familiar in eternity? These old personalities, the 
illuminated looks and remembrances of to-day, im- 
mortalized? What shall we be there but just these? 

Be it ours, then, to see that the lights are beau- 



226 DOMINION OF SPIRIT OVER MATTER. 

teous ; that the fashion of the immortal countenance 

be like unto that of the Son of God. Heaven is the 
soul transfigured with celestial brightness. No look 
of sin or shame or sorrow shall be there, but the 
glory of the Lamb lighting it with eternal day. 

There was once on earth a perfect life; it was 
cradled in innocence ; its childhood was a summer 
day of veiled light and waxing wonders; its man- 
hood stern, stormy, grand, but gentle; and its exit a 
convulsion that shattered the prisons of darkness 
and despair, and planted the signals of eternal dis- 
aster over sin, death, and hell. It lit the torch of 
hope on the pathway of mortals, and left it burning, 
and then passed into shadow. Be it ours to follow 
that life; in the dawn and in the noonday; down 
through the valley and up the ascension path; till, 
with Him and Elias and Moses, and all the glorified, 
we come to the great assembly at the right hand of 
God. 



XV. 

debt} -as (;//■. 

lie) *Ju hot of God. hi 

Christ laid dawn his life for u . 

i John iii. 16. 
hath HO man than this, that a 
man lay down his life' for his friends. 

John xv. 13. 

PERHAPS some of you noticed, the other day, 
that President Finney, in conducting a commu- 
nion service of several associated churches, I believe, 
invited not only members of all churches to remain, 
but in addition to church-members, invited also per- 
sons not members of any church, who, nevertheless, 
wished to be followers of the Truth and Life, to tarry 
at the service. That was Mr. Finney. 

I endorse the act heartily; and I only wait for the 
time to come when all the churches shall endorse it 
— for the time surely will come. And if this church 
is ready for it, and by vote or any other way will 
commission me to give that invitation, I shall be 
ready. I am outgrowing artificial distinctions more 
and more every day. A man is a man, true or false, 
and a Christian is a Christian, not by virtue of the 
pew he occupies, the church he attends, or his 
ecclesiastical status, but by virtue of his character 
and essential worth before God. 

If any of you take comfort in so thinking, I am 

227 



2 28 DEBT? —OR GIFT? 

glad But you must remember, also, that while you 
have comfort as a man and a Christian outside, there 
are a great many reasons why you should rejoice in 
all this inside. Christianity and manhood organized, 
make an institution of unspeakable power. A church, 
animated by a sense of its own proper significance, 
is a spiritual engine in the world for truth and virtue, 
whose potency is without a peer. It asserts God; 
scatters light; educates and exalts man; and is the 
new spiritual kingdom in its measure. Men come 
into churches under the laws of affinity. True men 
seek their affiliation not artificially but spiritually, 
sympathetically; not to be saved, but to assert the 
w of salvation. The force of each is thus multi- 
plied by that of all. So we give the usual invitation 
this morning, subject to the judgment and conscience 
of each one. 

And now I invite your attention to these grand 
words : "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because 
Christ laid dawn his life for us" Here, at any rate, 
the death of Christ expressed the love of God. Again, 
m the gospel of John : " Greater lave hath no man 
than this, that a nam lay dawn his life for his friends!' 
Exactly what Christ did. But that is not all. Listen 
further : " God hath eomnieuded his love toward us, in 
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died far us" — 
for foes even, as well as friends. Broader even than 
Mr. Finney, Christ is. And why all that? For God 
so loved the world that He gave his only So/i that 
wh sai ver believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
rlasting life. 



(7/AV\/".s DEATH EXPRl 229 

I know these are picked passa The Bible 

made from the Divine head and the Divine heart, and 
these pass :ome from the heart. They are repre- 

sentatives of the heart class generally. But Some- 
how there is a general feeling of consent throughout 
Christendom, that the centre and saving significan 
of the gospel is heart power rather than head power. 
It is love rather than law — life as distinct from light. 
Indeed, John says the light is life shining. It is a 
matter of general agreement, moreover, without qual- 
ification, throughout Christendom, that Christ died. 
All who believe that He lived, believe that He died. 
There is no diversity of opinion on this. Again, it 
is an universal consent and testimony that Christ 
died for us — in some sense, that He died for men. 
Again, also, it is the universal belief, standing in 
general testimony, that in some sense Christ died to 
express love. As in the text, " Hereby perceive wc 
the love of God, because Christ laid down Ills life for 
us!' That is what he did it for, to express God's 
love. So that, generally, love is considered the cen- 
tral and essential substance of the gospel. 

And yet we all know that the New Testament 
abounds in statements from which men have inferred 
that the death of Christ expressed not the lave of 
God, but the wrath of God ; passages from which 
they infer that the death of Christ meant God's penal 
anger; that it means punishment ; that it means pen- 
alty — the high exactions of justice as distinct from 
the (rcQ gift of grace and love. 

Xow this view of Christianity is called, by way of 
20 



230 - OR GIFTf 

distinction, the "satisfaction" view. It is expressed 
thus: "Divine Justin satisfaction far the sins 

of men by tin substituted penal sufferings of the Son of 

i" This is sometimes called also the commercial 
view of salvation, or of Christ's work, as distinguished 

from the Spiritual and gracious view. Hence certain 
terms rite in the handling of this satisfaction or com- 
mercial view. For instance, the conception is that 
OWe avast debt to God, and Christ comes anci 
offers Himself as payment of the debt — the word 
debt being a commercial term. 

Again, salvation, or the benefits of the Gospel are 
conceived to be a purcliasc from somebody — from 
some power possessing the desired boon; and Christ, 
in dying, becomes the price of that purchase. Thus, 
also, under the same view, we come upon the word 
ransom i which is in the Bible; the idea of which 
being a redemption back out of captivity, of one who 
has been captured by a hostile power. Christ paid 
the ransom — paid it by his agony. Other com- 
mercial terms come into use, as when men say, the 
suffering of Christ liquidated the claims of the law; 
Christ was substituted for our indebtedness — com- 
mercial terms. Again, he took upon himself our 
liabilities, and God imputed them to Him — words 
indicative of a commercial transaction. God ac- 
cepted him as our surety; as if we stood in account 
with God, and being insolvent, utterly bankrupt, 
Chi ps in, bringing so much agony- money to 

pay the deficit on the balance-sheet, and thus square 
the account with God. Christ constitutes a grand 



credit entry in the profit and loss account, that mal; 

(1 with the 1 Wvine g< ►vernment ( rod is satisfied. 
Christ is his quit claim. These are the satis- 

tion and commercial views of salvation, as indi- 
cated by the terms selected for handling it. 

Or, should the matter be contemplated under a 
simply judicial aspect, we find coming into use 
another set of terms indicating a criminal status of 
Christ, and the action of penal law. For instance, 
Christ is conceived o( as a victim demanded by out- 

fed justice \ Christ is conceived of as a bloody sac- 
re to propitiate God and win back his lost favor. 
God is thought of as punishing Christ for our sins ; 
or, is viewed as putting the stripes that belonged to us 
on to Christ. Christ is conceived of as bearing the 
penalty of our transgression. And this is the way 
He satisfies the claims God holds against us. The 
laws and status of the Divine government in relation 
to man, become changed by Christ. Christ reconciles 
God; satisfies Him; enables Him thus to go forward 
in the'work of salvation. 

This, you know, is what is called the Calvinistic 
view of Christianity. Not that Calvin originated it 
three hundred years ago ; not that these ideas were 
never in the minds of men before the days of the 
great Reformer; but that master-mind gathered up 
the elements of the grand system and codified them, 
being of legal bent and training himself. Having 
not only an acute, but vigorously logical mind, he 
compiled and compacted this iron system, called the 
satisfaction system, or the commercial system, or the 



232 Dl R GIFTt 

,m ; so that it not only hears his name, but 
it has held the faith of mankind greatly from that 
time to this. I can give it to you in a word. Calvin, 
in his Institutes, says : 

" I lad Christ been murdered by robbers, his death 
Would have been no satisfaction to God ; but when 
lie was regarded as a criminal it was incumbent on 
him to feel the severity of dh'i)ic revenge^ in order 
that he might both ward off and satisfy a righteous 
sentence ; wherefore we wonder not that he is said to 
have descended into hell, since he endured that 
death which is inflicted by an angry God on the 
wicked." 

This, you perceive, is exactly and logically the 
doctrine of substituted penalty, never so forcibly put 
as by this great intellect of Calvin. Our sensibilities 
start back, I know, in this day, from such views of 
God and his gospel; and nine out of ten would 
probably disown all faith in them. And yet, touch 
one stone in the arch and the structure comes down. 
Break one link in the chain and the rest is no better 
than a rope of sand. 

If we take the standpoint of the Westminster 
divines, the severity of their views on the doctrine 
of God and Christ, is quite as vigorous as anything 
we find in the Genevan Master. They could say: 
44 The Father chose the objects of mercy ; the Son 
purchased redemption for them. By the decree of 
God for the manifestation of his own glory, some 
are predestined to everlasting life, and others preor- 
dained to everlasting death. God was pleased to 



pass them by, and ordain them to wrath for their sin, 

the praise of his glorious justice 

Now, I do not cite these different systems for the 
sake of criti them, [bring them forward 

show the difference between the commercial vi< 
and the spiritual view ; between the debt view and 

the grace view; between the law view and the love 

view; between the arithmetical view and the ethii 
view of the gospel. The difference comes upon our 

thought by such question- a-: " Does God demand 
pay tor our indebtedn if He came forth as any 

other collector, taking us by the throat, as the par- 
able has it, saying, pay me that thou owest? and 

does Christ .step in and pay the debt and let us off?" 
or, " Does God come forth the forgiver of our debts, 
sending Christ into the heart to tell how it is done ? " 
J Ie cannot do both — collect the debt and forgive it 
too. Is Christ punished instead of ourselves ? Or 
does Christ come into the world God's offer of pardon 
on our repentance and forsaking of sin? For he 
cannot pardon and punish too. No matter whether 
God deals with you or your substitute. If the debt 
is paid, or the sin punished in any way, pardon and 
forgiveness as grace, a free gift, is simply absurd. 
The only question is, which is the gospel, grace or 
debt? punishment or forgiveness? pardon as a 
gratuity, or pardon purchased and paid for? 

The mighty matter turns on the interpretation of 

words, and the genuine conception of the work of 

Christ. Did Christ come to reconcile God to man, 

or man to God ? Do we conceive his design to be 

20 * 



234 DEBT?— OR CUT? 

to change the status of the Divine government 
towards man, or to change the status of man's char- 
acter towards the Divine government? Does Christ 
by his life and death contribute any competence to 
the Divine government not originally inhering in it? 
or is lie in the world to make known and to execute 
the unoriginated and eternal competence of that 
government? 

I Ionest men have held both views; good men have 
held both, and they hold both to-day. There is, I 
add, truth in both schemes ; for you cannot find a 
scheme of faith in history that has not had some 
power of truth in it; and it is the truth that holds men. 

Doubtless there is a high point of view which the 
human mind and heart will reach by and by, from 
which this dual aspect of Christianity may be viewed, 
and seen to be in harmonious adjustment and one- 
ness in itself. When we leave human theories; when 
we leave artificial schemes of thought ; drop the syl- 
logism of Aristotle and walk in the inspiration of 
John; then we shall begin to feel even within us the 
sympathetic affinity of truth in all its diversities and 
divorcements, and we shall walk not only in the 
grace of Justice but in the justice of Grace. 

When men pass by the human media, discolored 
by time, by circumstances, by individuality, and come 
directly to the text itself — nay, rather, when the 
providence of God shall raise up a fresh generation 
of thinkers that never knew the constraining bias of 
rhetoric, art, conventionalism and speculation, com- 
ing directly to the fresh words of Christ, then we 



Gi 

shall begin, or the world will h " 

and feel the vital force of the harmony and 
ami regenerating power of truth and 
life,— the eternal embrace of justice and love. Even 
now love is as exact as justice is gracious. There is 
not an attribute of God that may not he enunciated 
by the lip of any other attribute. There is no sepa- 
rate interest; there is a mighty harmony eternally 
there. Old Mercy herself is just, and Justice is mer- 
ciful. And this breaking things asunder which God 
has joined together, is direful misfortune in the 
thinking and faith of the world. Law itself is gra- 
cious, and grace is equally lawful; righteousness and 
truth met eternally ago; pardon and penalty melt 
into one in the Father's heart. 

Let us then, this morning at any rate, seek the 
higher point; let us endeavor to emancipate ourselves 
from the thrall of the lower love. Let us not linger 
among the conflicts and the jars of mere human 
thinking, but turn from human doubt to belief in 
God. Do it by your heart ; do it by your spirit ; do 
it by your faith, your whole soul. It is your right ; 
it is your privilege, especially, to hold no view that 
shall chill the debt of gratitude in the soul, from the 
fact that your obligations seem to have been cancelled 
by another. Drop not religion down to the level of 
a mercenary transaction —to a mere commercial 
adjustment. Hold yourself an infinite debtor, but to 
love and forgiveness without price. Chime in with 
the old angel-song, " Glory to God in the highest, 
peace on earth, good will to men;" God so loved the 



236 D. - OR GlFTf 

world from eternity of his own motion and nature 
that He sent Christ to make known his love and 

apply it. He came even to the cross, to the grave, 

and out of the grave, to the manifestation of that love. 

To-day, then, we stand on these heart texts ; for 

the communion day is a heart-day. We perceive the 

love of God now, in tliat Christ laid down his life for 
us. '* Greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
lay down his life for his friends." But more was done 
than this, in the fact that God commended his own 
love toward us, in that while we were not friends but 
sinners, Christ died for us. All coming out of the 
original germ, that God so loved the world that lie 
gave his Son, that whosoever should believe in Him 
.should not perish, but live evermore. 

Here we are safe; here we can be grateful; here 
we melt into penitence; here we bloom in hope. 
We can take our stand now with ancient Paul him- 
self, who said: "I am crucified with Christ ; never- 
theless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. 
And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by 
the faith of the Son of God, who loveth me and gave 
1 Iimself for me." 

Let us stand there to-day, not chilled and shiver- 
ing as culprits fearing sentence, but exultant and 
jubilant under the grand grace proclamation of life. 
The prison-doors are open, the culprit chains are 
shattered. The Father has spoken. He has bread 
for the hungry, and healing for the sick, and out- 
stretched arms and insignia of honor for ever)' re- 
turning prodigal. 



XVI. 
DRAWING NIGH UN: W. 

Di 
nigk ante Lines iv, 

Till. I movement, n<>t of antecedence and 

consequence; but of simultaneousness. When 

two ai ;hcr, one the other. 

The text therefore enunciat reat principle in 

religion. The principle is: if you want a blessing 
from God, go to God for it; use the rational means 
therefor; fulfill the cotrdit >f receiving it. [fyoU 

want anything from the market, go to the market for 
it and it is yours. Do you wish education ? go to 
education for the gift, and education is with you. 
Are you in frailty, seeking health, sighing for her 
rich fountains? approacli them and her benedictions 
are yours. Are you an aspirant for honor? rise to 
honor and honor is yours. Do you hunger and 
thirst for purity? you have nothin do but to be 

pure, and purity is with you — not otherwise. No 
matter how much faith you have in purity ; no matter 
how abundant and inspired your hymns of praise to 
purity; if you desire her, be pure and she is yours. 
Draw nigh unto anything, and that to which you 
draw nigh, draws nigh to you; that which inter- 
spaces you vanishes, and the proximity ensues in the 
premises. 

237 



238 ; NIGH UNTO GOD. 

There is it deal said about drawing nigh unto 

God ; a great deal of talk about living near to God ; 
so much that we are quite familiar with it. I often 
think we have lost the crisp, contractile force of the 
idea, allowing it to drop into mere cant. 

Let us see then, if we can, what is really meant 
by drawing nigh unto God. 

Not spatially is it to be done ; for the distance be- 
tween God and any soul is not a matter of space at 
all ; it is not a matter of interstellar or planetary 
ranges. God is just as near to you on the Pacific as 
on the Atlantic coast; just as near on the further 
continent as here; just as near, notwithstanding 
fues and leagues may interspace point and point, 
or being and being. Take the wings of the morning 
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, and 
God is there as much as when and where you started. 
Make your bed in hell — lie is there. The separa- 
tion is not, in an)' sense, a matter of space or time. 

Neither is it a matter of mere existence, or a meta- 
physical distance; for in Him perpetually we live 
and move and have our being. God touches all 
being at all times, and under all possible conditions. 
Therefore this is not the difference. 

Neither is it that of officiality. God is no more 
remote from one soul than from another as to his 
Fatherhood He is the Father of all men. He is 
the judge of all alike. He is the universal lawgiver. 
He is the governor over all; the bountiful provider 
for all. He sendeth rain upon the just and the un- 
just; and He is no respecter of persons. This is not 
the distance and the difference. 



WHAT iS Rl 

Hut this it is, vi/. : Distance and difference of ch 
octet; a disparity, not of being, but of quality 
being. 

I think you will sometim tired of hearing this 

1 character so often in connection with religion. 
It is a pulpit innovation, perhaps; and yet it is all 
there is oi religion. Eliminate this, or leave it out 
in anyway, and the rest is a mere spasm or phantom 
of cant. The difference that n< I be overcome 

in your approaches to God, is the difference between 
his character and yours, and nothing else. We draw 
near to Him when we approximate his likeness in 
the quality of our virtue, of our nature — in a word. 
of our character. 

But, ah ! what is character ? says some one ; what 
is it? how is it made? of what does it consist? 

We are told that w r e are created in the image of 
God; which means that we have certain capacities, 
certain powers, faculties, elemental constituencies of 
our nature, the immortal humanity deposited within 
us, by virtue of which we are capable of becoming 
like God. In this sense we bear his imaLre. Image 

o o 

is prophetic; image is an outline possibility; a com- 
petency. 

In this respect we have three main elements : our 
intelligent nature, our moral nature, our spiritual 
nature. Our intelligent nature relates us to God 
under capacities of receiving truth. It is the truth- 
acquiring possibility within us. Our moral nature 
enables us to be right instead of wrong, or wrong 
instead of right, as we determine. It enables us to 



240 DRAWING XIGll UNTQ COD. 

be righteous. We arc thus capable of repeating the 
virtue in God. Our spiritual nature or capacity is 
that by which we can be receptive of the Divine, and 
become subjects of the life and inspiration of God. 
God may glow in the torpor of our nature through 
an elemental relation to Him, deeper than thought, 
deeper than virtue, through that radical endowment 
of being whose root drinks life directly from Him. 

Now the development of this threefold compe- 
tence of our nature, the balancing of all the powers 
therein, the putting to right use of everything that 
makes us, is the function and the fact of character. 
No matter how your associations may bias you ; no 
matter how like a sweet morsel you may roll some- 
thing else under the tongue of your memory or hope; 
your religion is worth what you are worth in God's 
estimate as to your character; nothing more. 

So that this drawing nigh to God, you perceive, is 
no artificial matter; it is no mechanical contrivance, 
no dead paint or formulated imitation; no panto- 
mime or simulacrum whatever. It is a moral sig- 
nificance involving virtue, right, purity and all the 
excellences and graces of human character. It in- 
volves, as we have already seen, not only the moral 
element, but the spiritual element; the exercise of 
the deep, ultimate capacity in human nature for 
receiving God, and all that is sweet and divine and 
ecstatic within I Iim. 

Tp draw near to God artificially, is very much like 
drawing near to these beautiful flowers by way of 
silk and satin and paint. It can be done; and the 



R TIL /. 



241 



unpr 1 eye shall be cheated We can imil 

but it will Dot be the thing of love and beauty and 

truth. There must be more than imitations. So the 
bloom that comes from us must be an efflorescence 
from the living root that God planted in our nature. 

I know this will be nothing but a human blossom in 

itself; therefore I add, that every soul which draws 

nigh to God in a way to acquire the Divine charac- 

oiust have this human blossom fertilised by the 

counter-bloom of the Divine nature itself. The hu- 
man is the candle, but it must be lighted by the Di- 
vine spark. The human, however pure, is nothing 
more than the measure of meal ; it must be pervaded 
by the Divine leaven. The human, however perfect 
in its stage, is still raw and unripe until perfected by 
the clime far away. This is the way character comes ; 
this is the manner of it and the substance of it. 

It is evident, therefore, that no more external in- 
stitute, ritual, ordinance, can ever bring a spiritual, 
ethical being to the spiritual, ethical standard of 
another being; no ecclesiastical status can put a 
soul into proximity to God; no dogmatic furnish- 
, however full, however fiery, however ancient, 
mossy or recent, have anything to do with this. It 
is a matter personal, entirely; it is a matter spiritual, 
essentially; it is a matter of character, quality of 
soul, intensity of virtue, and only this. It means 
sweetness and purity of heart, of spirit, of temper; 
it means Christliness of soul ; it means Godliness of 
character ; and that is all it means. 

Now for exactly this you must see that Jesus 
21 Q 



^42 DRAWING NIGH UNTO COD. 

Christ came into the world bringing his grand Gos- 
pel. Christ and the power of God in his teachings, 
are here to draw men unto Him. They are to draw 
men up, not to drag God down. Christ and his 
pel are the long arm of the Almighty reached 
out to the world. They brought the Father within 
feasible, visible reach of the child. Christ told the 
world the way to God ; furnished the world the truth 
towards God and the life of God. He told men how 
to go to Him, and what to do, to be, to suffer and 
enjoy, as they should rise in character to the Divine 
standard. Christ and his teachings were the spark 
to light the candle; they were the pollen scattered 
from the heavenly blossom upon the human bloom 
of our human nature; they were the leaven in this 
measure of meal, making bread for angels. And all 
this was and is a provision for every solitary soul of 
the world ; light for every man, bread for every child 
of the race ; hope for all who will yield the due 
measure of confidence and trust towards God. Not 
for mankind only — all peoples and climes and kin- 
dreds of this world — but for other worlds, too, is 
this gift of Christ and his teachings. Included 
therein is an organic function by which the fortunes 
of two orders of existence are woven together. We 
are in the planting hour; we are to be in the reap- 
ing hour by and by. Such organic unity is stipu- 
lated and vouched for by Christ and his Gospel, sent 
into the world by God to tell us of this great and 
glorious thin 

Now, exactly here are the meaning and worth of 



all 1 i ; here is the meaning and the realitj 

ition. To be saved is to become like Christ — 

God — not in your talk, not in your ceremony, 

in your imitation, not in your symbols, but in 

your virtues, in your character; and just in the de- 

that you conic near to the high standard, arc: 

you saved. As you conic short you lack salvation. 

Sonic arc scarcely saved — saved as by fire. Some 

will be but as a glimmering, twinkling speck, while 

others will he like radiant star-; and others still, 

according to the Hook, like burning suns in the 

Canopy of glory. Just in the ratio under which we 

Stand in our character to the Divine character, will 

be our status in the world of life. 

What a glorious conception this is ! What a grand 
scheme of being to contemplate! How the mere 
thought of it seems to throb down its inspiration into 
brain and all nature! The glory thereof become 
anticipative glow and charm in the human heart. 
What waking under the inspiring touch of the glo- 
rious conception that we live and move and have 
our being under such grand economy as this ! Be- 
ginning to exist as an image, and environed by Di- 
vine and immortal helpers, our growth and develop- 
ment reach that final, terminal stage, in which we shall 
stand completed, answering face to face unto God. 

There have ever been two opinions in the world 
respecting this matter of religion and salvation. One 
has been, that man should come to God ; the other 
has been, that God should come to man. Now I 
think that we may steer clear of difficulty by the 



244 DRAWING NIGH UNTO GOD. 

\ of our subject. God has already conic to man 
in Jesus Christ; in his Gospel ; in the revelations of 
all his providence ; in the revelations of all his works. 
I [e has already come, and is here, in the possibilities 
and in the provisions of salvation. Man must come 

rod in the actualities of these possibilities — in 
the realization of these provisions. He is to make 
concrete what before was only in the abstract. He 
is to make substantial what was at first only shadowy 
and hypothetical. God has come, and man has to 
come. 

Again : it has been the opinion of a portion of t 
mankind, that God was to do everything and man 
nothing; while on the other hand, the opinion has 
1) ?en, that man is to do everything and God nothing. 
Now the light of our subject scatters all such confu- 
sion. The God o[ heaven did indeed let down the 
golden ladder whose foot touched to the uttermost 
the depths of humanity, and then the call was, "O 
man, ascend this ladder and draw nigh unto me; for 
in Mich ascension I shall be nigh unto you." We 
are co-workers with God. Those notions I just 
referred to were not born of the New Testament ; 
th y were born among the musty speculations of 
rs ; the\- are a kind of hybrid offspring from 
the wedlock of pagan philosophy and the sweet 
gospel of St. John. God created us in his likeness, 
with the possibility and capacity of reaching his own 
. his virtues through our fidelity. There 
Was his work, and here is ours; and this confusion 
vanishes. 1 [ence that grand passage in Paul : " Work 



MA 






OUt your own salvation with fear and tremblin 

These institutions, these positions, these moth 
gran 1 inspiring labors working in you, in all your 
endeavors to do God's command, namely, to come 
up to the standard of His character. The nearer you 
work to this standard, the nearer you will be to Him; 
the nearer you agree with God, the more directly 
agree with you; and when you come to- 
gether, that oneness is peace, reconciliation, atone- 
ment reali/ 

I want you to think of that word atonement. It 
is not a sounding syllable; it is not a mere passing 

word; there is unspeakable depth of meaning in it. 

It means the bringing of the soul into fellowship, 
harmony and union with God ; renewing it after his 
own divine likeness; filling it with his own wisdom 
and unselfish love; bringing it at one \\\i\\ Him in 
feeling, desire and purpose. 

The value of Christ and his religion is exactly 
here : Gocfs power to bring humanity, as to its cliarac- 
to\ up to the standard of Divinity, as to its character. 
Christ and his character are virtue-powers to make 
men virtuous; they are holy powers to make us 
holy ; they are Godly powers to make us godly; 
heavenly powers to make us heavenly. Not substi- 
tutes — not mere cards of presentation — they mean 
ourselves, or Christ's spirit and character in us. 

Just in proportion as we approximate, morally and 
spiritually, the I Hvine standard, the difference between 
that standard and ourselves vanishes. When our 
souls are ripened into the fullness of the heavenly 

21* 



246 DRAWING NIGH UNTO G< 

fruition, we shall be fruits of immortality; and in such 
coming to God, He will have come to us in oneness 
and ripeness and sweetness forever. 

Here is the great Reconciliation; yes, the great 
Reconciler. They stand as the pledge that whoso- 
ever worketh in the name of the Lord and in the 
nature of the Lord, shall not find his work in vain. 
They come down here as the ascending path of man 
up to glory ; and we walk step after step, step after 
step, as we add virtue to virtue, grace to grace. 

Mistake not times and places — not this mountain 
or that mountain, not this church or that church, 
not one denomination or another denomination — for 
God. Wherever there is a spiritual, devout heart or 
character, there God is tented and there heaven 
begins. 

The time for all tin's is life — the long life we may 
live on earth; every day, not one-seventh of the days ; 
not special places and times and seasons alone, but 
continuous life; the deeds of men, the thoughts of men, 
the motives and beliefs of men in their current birth 
and flow. Not only must we be sometimes drawing 
r to God, but always ; when we buy, when we sell ; 
when we speak of each other; wdicn we patrol the 
streets alone or in company ; when we are at a neigh- 
hou^e ; when we are the custodians of his repu- 
tation or his character. We are always drawing near 
to G >d, or increasing the distance between ourselves 
and 1 [im. Not only in our doctrine ; not only in our 
; not mainly in our ecclesiastical status; not 
i\- in our professions; bet essentially in ours, 
do we draw near to Him. 



^_ 



Df 247 

Time is drawing us near I 1. The gol 

hours of Him. We are ap hing 

Him; we arc nearing the tribunal where we shall 
sec Him in his character. Then in the light of it we 
shall sec truly our own. The question I ask now is, 
Will it be a burning • contrast, or a sweet resem- 
blance? Will it be a jarring discord, or the chime 
which makes the key of eternity's song? We are 
ring God in this sense rapidly. He will not ask 
bout human standards. There will be no ques- 
tion put as to whether you conform to this standard 
or that or the other, remotely laid down or recently. 
Not a word will be said about such things. Here is 
the standard, divine, immortal; God himself, only 
God. " How square you unto that, O soul ? How 
much are you like Me?" 

" O Lord, have we not taught in thy name, sung 
in thy name, fought in thy name ? have we not 
burned heretics in thy name? have we not turned 
the world upside down in thy name?" M l never 
knew you," may possibly be the only response ; 
11 how much are you like Me ?" 

The fruits of the spirit are sweetness, gentleness, 
love, purity, power, grandeur and glory of soul, 
fragrance of saintliness that shall make angels 
for the regaling of your presence, if you are thus 
fruitful. 

There is a beautiful world over there — beautiful 
as God, populated greatly already. Thousands of 
harps are struck by fingers we have pressed. They 
are triumphant; they bear the likeness. What, O 



DRAWING NIGH UNTO GOD. 

soul, is your great interest as you draw nigh to that 
world ? Will they greet you gladly ? Will old sun- 
dered loves strike hands of recognition again, like 
music melting into music ? That is all a matter of 
fitness; all a matter of virtue, sweetness, charm — of 
how much you are worth in God's sight, as related 
to their worth in his sight. 

We are coming not only to God, nearing not only 
the spiritual world, but we are nearing our final self, 
our second self, the terminal self. We are nearing the 
self of harvest, of which the present hour is the seed- 
planting. Shall we be glad to see ourselves? Shall 
we be a benediction upon our own heads for ever 
and ever? Will there be peace in here — at heart? 
will there be power here, and shall I be easy-man- 
nered in heavenly presences? Will my mien and 
spiritual bearing be that of homelike grace in the 
society of beauty and blessedness? 

These are the questions to ask now. If we are 
drawing near to the significance of things in this 
sense, then we shall be saved. We need have no 
other thought, in faith, in prayer, in deed, in memory 
or hope, but this identity of worth with God — this 
at-oncness or union of our souls with Him. Draw 
near to Him, then, in truth, in purity, in beauty, in 
accord with Him in his estimate of the 
nobility of true humanity; glow with Him in the 
or of an immortal and unselfish love; and this 
shall be spiritual and eternal nearness. 

> come back to the mansions, the household of 
heaven ; so dwells for ever the Father with the chil- 
li. 



XVII. 

THE LAMB HOOD OF GOD— AND HOW /'/' TAKES 

AWA Y SIX. 

\ )ld the La rub of God that tak 

tlie sin of the world, — John i. 2 

THE word lamb is a prominent Bible word ; and 
as we find it in connection with altar usage, 
together with the tropical sense which it bears in the 
imagery that sets forth the Divine nature, it is so 
familiar and well understood that it is not needful to 
tarry for formal elucidation. All that is tender and 
gentle is implied ; all that is pure, patient and long- 
suffering in God is intended. It means God's self- 
sacrifice ; his suffering sensibility in view of sin; his 
distress at our self-inflicted injuries ; his grief and 
burden of love over our unfilial dereliction, and his 
unrequited love. In a word, it signifies God's heart 
pierced by our transgressions, and bearing the load 
of our sins and our guilt. His soul - sympathy 
weighed down for us ; wounded, weeping, sorrowing 
love ; the great self-compensating balance of his own 
nature, whereby sorrowing paternity begets a tribute 
to Deity itself, and the capability of self-sacrifice in 
the interests of redemption from sin and disaster, 
stands as innate satisfaction from the foundation of 
the world. Such is the Lambliood of the Divine 

nature. 

249 



250 /•; LAMBHOOD OF GOD, /■. . 

The Lamb of the Old Testament is typical, sym- 
bolical, ceremonial, lustral ; the Lamb of the New 
tament is personal, spiritual, real; the Lamb of 
God is living, loving, divine, eternal. 

There is the sign ; there is the word; and there is 

the idea. In the Old Testament it blossomed ; in 

the New it fruited ; but the root or seed was in God, 

and :eas God. Sublimely may it be said: u In the 

inning was this Lambhood, and the Lambhood 

with (]od, and the same was God." 

Men are accustomed to say, the Fatherhood is God; 
the Christhood is God; the Lambhood. is God; the 
Spirithood is God, putting predicate for subject. 
Say, better, the Fatherhood is of God ; the Christ- 
hood is of God \ the Lambhood is of God ; the Spirit- 
hood is of God — using, as the grammarians say, the 
subjective genitive instead of the objective. 

Fatherhood, Christhood, Spirithood, do not locate 
their meaning outside of God, objective to Him ; but 
inside, carrying only a subjective significance. They 
interpret God; tell what lie is, not what something 
else is. They are of Him; reveal Him; are Him- 
self speaking, working, creating, re-creating. There 
is that true of God which gives divine fitness to such 
diction. He thus becomes his own dictionary. 

Taking this view of the matter, the way is clear 
and direct to certain results. If God is the Father- 
hood of the world, then this Fatherhood is divine 
and eternal ; if I le is the Christhood, then the Christ- 
hood must be divine and eternal; so if He is the 
Lambhood. the Lambhood must be divine and 



eternal, slain from the foundation of the WOI* Id The 
ne is true of all that may he justly predicated 

the divine and eternal Godhood Thus the Divine 
Nature -lands in unbroken coherence from the foun- 
dation of the world; in organic oneness from first to 

last, whether contemplated in relation to Creation, 
Providence, or Redemption. God is One; his gov- 
ernment one. His mighty scheme of wisdom, love 

and power is but I Iimself projected ; an organic 
whole of vital functions, holding sovereign unity in 

correlate diversity and subordinate manifoldness as 
sential to the absolute unity. In Him do all things 
consist. 

The Lambhood of God is the heart of God ; that 
cherished inmost that lies in the bosom of the Father, 
innocent, tender, gentle, patient, yearning, long-suffer- 
ing, self-sacrificing, bleeding, interceding. It is this 
sorrow-pierced, sin-bearing, heart-aching stress of 
Paternal passion, whose innate necessities are fitly 
pointed to in the symbol, naked of euphemism, M slain 
from the foundation of the world." 

We know, then, where to look for our Christ, the 
Lamb, the Gospel and salvation. They are of God, 
in God, yea, are God himself. To seek them else- 
where is to be 0-theistic in our religion. 

We are thus able to be sure of our standing firmly 
and clparly on Monotheism. We have not gods many, 
but one God, besides whom there is none other. 
This truth was the sublime assertion of the Old Dis- 
pensation ; not less sublimely asserted in the New, 
but more fully developed there, and brought, exe- 



252 THE LAMBHOOD OF GOD, ETC. 

cutively, into adaptation to the life, nature, and 
necessities of man. Damaging constructions of this 
central truth of all true religion, through the refract- 
- and glosses of Pagan theology, have been 
at the foundation of most of the confusion in Chris- 
tian theology, bringing strife and mournfulness to 
many. To depart from Monotheism, is to enter 
Polytheism. 

From the premises laid down, the Divinity of the 
Gospel is not only an easy but an inevitable inference. 
Whatever is of God or Godhood, be it Creatorship, 
Fatherhood, Christhood, Lambhood, or Spirithood ; 
be it mind or heart; be it law or love, it being of 
God, and so far forth God Himself, is necessarily 
Divine. And this Divinity from the fountain-head, 
is all that our humanity in its several phases of want, 
needs to perfect it. They twain make one new 
man. 

Nobody, then, can doubt the eternity of the Gospel 
if it is of God, a native wealth and competence of 
His being. The element of time docs not appear in 
the origination of the Fatherhood, Christhood, Lamb- 
hood of God; they only eventuate in time. To 
make the Christian gospel less ancient than God, is 
Irop it out of the category of the supernatural and 
divine, leaving it only a bubble on the passing stream 
of phenomena. % 

I [ere we touch the unity of the Gospel. The whole 
moral government of God, nay, his universal govern- 
ment is one. Its Christ, its Lamb, its Spirit, its Pa- 
ternity, all one — coherently, concurrently one; a 



EDS VO RED /: 

vital, organic, harmonious whole; with no conflict, 

incy, or incompatibility of function-, ii 
purpose or tendency, from first to last The end was 
in the beginning, and the beginning was competent 
to the end; and there was no intermittent pulse be- 
tween them, no mended link or remedied defects. It 
is a grateful consideration, as inspiring as it is true, 
that no regulator had to be introduced into the Divine 
government from foreign sources, the regulator being 
in and of the government to begin with. It is a 
stimulating challenge to love and trust, that neither 
God nor his government can come to any dead cen- 
which they cannot pass without the aid of some 
additional momentum introduced to enable them to 
proceed. God, in the organic premises of his nature 
and government, is all-sufficient and cannot be rein- 
forced. Christianity is a divine anticipation in the 
nature of God, looking to the necessities of man. 

Of course the sufficiency of the gospel is too evident 
to be made plainer. Its adequacy is in itself; its 
measure is its origin. The adequacy of God is that 
of his gospel. Does it not transcend all human ne- 
cessity ? Can the Infinite and Eternal be mended in 
his own necessities? Can He be helped save as He 
helps Himself? 

Here is the great challenge to Faith. Confidence 
cannot be misplaced or betrayed. The strength of 
it is in the pillars and beams of the universe; the 
foundations of it, eternal Love. Here Hope roots. 
Its strength of expectation and desire draws nurture 
from the depths of Deity. Its bloom shall never 

22 



254 THE LAM D 01- GOD, ETC. 

wither; its fruit will he immortal. Here is heart* 

Man can take up the great problem of existence with 
that there is solid substance in it. He can 
approach God with a holy boldness ; he can advance 
with a sublime audacity of confidence and trust. 
Courage breeds as it dares. Crowns brighten by the 
conflicts in which they are won. No greater salva- 
tion can there be, than to melt into this heart-fire of 
God. The Lambhood of God, become a passion in 
the soul of man, is the gospel heaven. No greater 
punishment can there be, than to wake up at last and 
find that it was not an iron-crowned despot, but this 
very Lambhood of God I struck at and resisted; this 
suffering gentleness and gentle patience that loved 
me, whose aching heart my sins pierced, and whose 
sin-bearing love I wounded with ingratitude and in- 
difference. This Lambhood is the Power of God unto 
salvation. It is the God-power because it is the na- 
ture of God, original and eternal as his Being. 1 [e 
did not acquire it in addition to his native compe- 
tence ; no God or gods ab extra brought it to Him, 
or in any way contributed enabling considerations, 
or augmented his power to save. The power was 
already in 1 lim ; the ability was of Him and eternal ; 
the competence could no more be aided or increased, 
than could the being of God itself. He was self- 
sufficient of Himself. God could express and apply 
this eternal competence of his nature to the nature 
of man ; and this is the whole matter of Christianity. 
Revelation means nothing else. It is the forthputting, 
forthspeaking of the interior of God's nature, as a 



divine, vital power, for the purpose of pro 
itself \n man's nature and developin nd 

rfecting it in his own likeness. Of Him and from 

Him and through Him and to Him, arc all thin 
to whom be glory for ever. 

Having shown what the Lambhood of God is, I 
proceed next to show what it was and is for % or h 
it "taketh away the sin of the world." The final end 
of every revealed truth, determines, not outside of 
us, not in God, not in religion, but in us. .And what 
is that L-m\? Precisely this : To make you and me 
and all God's creatures bearing his image t finally, in 
character, like Him. That is the end and the aim and 
the far of the whole thought and scheme. 

I remark, in the first place, that the Lambhood of 
God takes away the sin of the world by entering into 
man. The stand and status for operation are not 
extraneous to man; not in God; not in Christ; not 
in creation; not anywhere or anyhow exterior to 
man's nature itself. Directly in it, and only there, 
is the field of its operation and power. 

And I remark in the second place that the Lamb- 
hood of God takes away the sin of the world by get- 
ting not only into man, but into his very heart, the 
vital centre of his being. This must be in order that 
the Divine power thus entering, may get into the 
vital circulation of our very existence ; may flow 
wherever its blood flows; go wherever the win or 
artery ramifies; that it may get into the very juic 
of our existence ; may mingle with the generative sap 
of the very fibre and flavor of our character, the 



256 THE LAMB HOOD OF GOD, KTC. 

heart, the digestive and assimilative function of our 
nature. 

And then I add, in the third place, that the Lamb 
of God takes away the sin of the world by cleansing 
the world. O, how should men ever have mistaken 
this? The very function we are speaking of is that 
of cleansing — actual cleansing. I mean the cleansing 
of persons, of individuals, of specific and actual hearts 
and minds and consciences and entire souls. I make 
this emphasis for the sake of distinguishing between 
what is actual and what is substitutional or hypo- 
thetical. The cleansing must be of yourself ] and it 
will not help you to have anybody else cleansed. 
The whole force of the thought must hug this fact 
of personality. 

I low do you cleanse, for example, a stain on the 
pure white paper? I low do you purge the dark 
vicious stain from the pure white linen? You ply 
the spot with a hidden yet vital and forceful chemi- 
cal, until the paper becomes whiter and whiter, and 
at last is as white as snow. Thus with your pure 
linen ; you demise it ; and you give a great deal some- 
times for the secret as to how this maybe done, that 
the good thing thus damaged for the time may not 
be destroyed. Just so there is a divine chemistry in 
the heart of God throbbing itself out sometimes in 
tears and anguish, sometimes in the native stress of 
paternity, that gets into the heart and plies you 
there, and takes the stain of sin away. No substitu- 
tion will do that; no faith in the chemical force of 
God's virtues simply will do it. The application of 



EJ ' MORI I C 257 

the of the virtue must be direct and personal, 

spective of all substitul 

I low do you cleanse a diseased 1)* >dy ? Your child 
sick ; your friend is languishing under the fell touch 

< f poisonous infection; and what is your cours 
You take the medical prescription and put it into 
the very Heart ^f lite; you so administer it that it 

shall be distributed in the circulation and work its 
purifying mission in the blood, in the very juices of 

life; and thus your child becomes medicated and 

cleansed. You do not substitute somebody's life for 
the life of your child. You do not ask your child to 
look at the medicine, saying, " Child of my heart, 
have faith in that, and be healed." You want him to 
have faith in it of course ; but that alone will not 
save him. You want him cleansed ; you want the 
disease taken away personally, not hypothetically. 

You will observe that it is a moral cleansing that 
the Gospel contemplates, not a material, physical or 
le^al cleansing. You will further observe that it is 
not a ceremonial cleansing; not a symbolic cleansing; 
it is not the play of being made clean acted upon the 
stage, the observance of which as spectators or par- 
ticipants, is assumed to be sufficient — not that. You 
may do that to the end of your days, and grow in 
uncleanm 

But I add, in the next place, that the Lamb of G 
takes away the sin of the world by toning ///> the moral 
powers of our nature. Sin is abnormal ; sin is disease. 
It is, therefore, taken away by so invigorating the 
normal functions and elements of our moral system 
22* R 



258 THE LAMBHOOD OF GOD t ETC. 

as to foster convalescence, and enable it to so antag- 
onize and resist sin, as successfully to throw it off. 
Without this concurrent nurture and development of 
normal resources, these capacities and susceptibili- 
ties created within us by God, wherein we stand 
constituted moral beings, the exclusive medication 
of abnormal conditions will never successfully take 
away sin. For debility is there, you understand, by 
nature. Long before any man sinned, he was capa- 
ble of sinning. There was an "infirmity" in him 
that is u helped " by the Divine tonic. And what I 
want is, that man may have strength not in him by 
nature — whether by development, by discipline, by 
use or otherwise — so that sin may be taken away 
and kept away. 

I add, further, that sin is taken away by fructifying 
human nature by a higher principle and life than 
naturally and normally adheres in it ; I mean the life 
and principle of the Divine nature; in other words, 
the Lambhood of God. This is very important. 

You know how it is in the analogies of nature. It 
is not good for one element to be alone. The floral 
world tells us how it is that a single flower left by 
itself, is a barren thing; it will bloom and waste its 
sweetness on the air, and bear no fruit until it is 
fertilized by a counter-bloom. That is what our hu- 
manity wants. Even if it had never sinned, it wants 
that to keep it from sin; but having sinned, much 
more does it need this high and new fructification in 
order that strength may be generated within it to 
resist the assaults and successes of sin. 



\ - WHAT is IT.- 
All may be summed up in this one -rand word: 

The way to take sin away from the world as well 

to keep it away, is, to propagate the nature of God in 

the nature of n/au. To generate the eharacter of God 
in the character of man, is regeneration. Then the 

status of our humanity becomes that of Divinity, and 
we are saints of God indeed. 

Here a double action is inaugurated: that of 
assault and attack against sin ; and that of nurture 
and stimulation of right, goodness, holiness. Man 
needs to be stimulated, fed and encouraged, as well 
as to extend the theatre of conflict wherein sin is 
exterminated and driven from the field. For when 
right dethrones wrong, wrong is exiled from the 
realm of the conflict and sin is taken away. When 
the old character is driven out by the expulsive 
power of the incoming new character, then a new 
nature ensues, and sin is so far removed. Just as 
fast as the Lambhood of God ingenerates itself in 
the naturehood of man, man is purged and sin is 
taken away — not theoretically only, but actually. 
Theories of themselves won't do us any good. 

So far as an unjust man is made just, he is justified. 
The meaning of the word justified is, made just. 
God never justifies a man while he is in the wrong ; 
because while in the wrong God cannot approve of 
him, and He cannot justify what He does not ap- 
prove. His wrong must be driven out of him; and 
the power to drive it out and take it away and make 
him righteous, is in God, " from the foundation of 
the world." It did not have to be put into Him 



260 I t MB HOOD (>/■ GOD, 1. IV. 

some time afterwards. And when that God-power 
is used by man, and becomes through his fidelity a 

power <>f character in him, then his sin is taken away. 
Now God can approve of him ; now lie can justify 
him; for man thus conforms to God, the ever just 
and true. 

So men are sanctified as far as the sanctity of God 
pervades and purifies their life and character. I know 
many are sensitive about these words, life and char- 
acter. How beautiful are the feet of those who come 
upon the mountain with good tidings. The beauty 
depends upon the height ; distance lends enchant- 
ment to the view. But let the feet of the prophet 
tread the valleys where sin lives, and apply his fiery- 
message with " Thou art the man," and the saluta- 
tion is very different. "Away with him! Away 
with him ! Crucify him ! " 

Men are redeemed — actually, I mean, not substi- 
tutional^ — when the power of redemption becomes 
enthroned in their nature, dethroning the power of 
sin and destruction, or taking it away. Redemp- 
tion means getting a man out of wrong; but to get 
him out of wrong is only to get wrong out of him. 
There is no other possible way to rectify him. 

Thus we see what the great Reconciliation of the 
pel is. God is in Christ, reconciling the world 
unto Himself; that is, harmonizing its character to 
htS own character. Man is reconciled to God when 
iprocates God's reconciliation from the foun- 
dation of the world to him. That is, when the soul 
within us reciprocate^ that low which first loved us, 



- WHAT TS I i 

then the great chord of God and man is struck, and 
the music of reconciliation begins. 

Exactly so with Atonement How men hag 

with this word, and much more with the idea! They 
hand}' it from Dan to Beersheha, as we kick a foot- 
ball in a game. Many times they don't know the 
first meaning of it. They use it as a kind of talis- 
manic charm or mystic sorcery in the play, wherein 
they exercise their faith and hope of heaven. Let 
us see. The power of atonement is the power of 
the Lambhood of God ; the Lamb nature of God. 
When that power, therefore, becomes an executed 
fact in your moral nature, transforming that nature, 
through your fidelity, into a new character, then your 
sin is atoned for and actually taken away. Otherwise 
it remains in you. You may formulate your theo- 
ries of atonement till you are tired ; they will not 
touch your character until the power of atonement 
enters you as a character-creator, taking away your 
wrongness and putting in its place, or helping you to 
put in its place, that which is right and true and pure. 
Atonement objectively considered, that is, as it stands 
stated in God, is simply the heart power of God, to be 
let into your heart like a life-stream to make you 
pure and sweet and holy. 

The washing of regeneration we read of right here 
in the Book, is a grand and glorious idea. Hut it is 
not a washing outside of man; it is a washing inside 
of him, or it will not benefit him. A washing of 
regeneration, or anything else that leaves man's 
character just as it was before, is a mere mockery. 



77/ 

It is the juggler's game, or the game of the dupe. 
The washing that God means is a washing that takes 
hold, cleansing the man's character, making it clean 

and pure and righteous. No matter how orthodox 

your theory of the Divine "soap and water" may 

the only orthodox question about the matter is, 

I low clean are you ? ] low clean ? How thoroughly 

rubbed and scrubbed and rinsed out are your life 
and character, by this cleansing power before God ? 
" Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall perceive 
God.' 1 The grand Gospel of our souls is not some 
sublime or divine washing-machine, to be praised 
and glorified in grandiloquent way, as if that would 
[pake one white ; as if that would save us. Our char- 
acters need to be fomented and fulled and bleached 
by the detergent vitality of truth and love. The 
grand Gospel is a stream of chemical divinity that 
must pour itself through us, and drench us through 
and through, or our sins will not be washed away. 

( ), thousands upon thousands are there who would 
much rather ride into heaven upon the shoulders of 
some substituted Sin-bearer, than forsake their own 
sins and foot it for themselves by Way of the Sermon 
on the Mount. How much more eagerly would they 
cling to that proxy way of being saved, than hold 
themselves responsible to that moral code which 

ir of sin, and helps (iod to get it out of 
them. This is the reason why thousands upon thou- 
sands who are often called Christians, seem at last 

so unwashed, so uncleansed. Praising the Fountain 
ol salvation don't save anybody. The great ques- 



PI /. 

tion still comes, ll<>v. n has thai Fountain made 
u as to your life — your character? Thei 

matter stands and will stand, and hugs US ly. 

No wonder we want to shake it off No wen 
that proxy faith sometimes says, that putting Christ 
directly into the soul in this searching personal man- 
ner, is a " departure from the Gospel." It is a de- 
parture from their Gospel. 

Be it remembered that the Lambhood of God — the 
Christ of God — did not come into the world simply 

make money for us that we may be idle, and in 

our idleness steer clear of the disadvantage of bank- 
ruptcy. The power of God in his Lamb or his Christ, 
came into this world to tell us how we may make 
money for ourselves, and so lay up the treasure of 
heaven. " Thou oughtest therefore to have put my 
money to usury," said Divine Wisdom. M Thou 
oughtest to have made the five talents ten," was the 
condemning rebuke administered to the primitive 
Antinomian. Trusting to Christ, with Christ left 
out of life and manhood and womanhood and char- 
acter, is substitution indeed ; but the substitution is 
that of the word for the thing meant. 

Two theories have held the world in division from 
the first. One holds that the Gospel tells us of the 
Divine goodness, purity, holiness and righteous- 
ness which God takes and substitutes for our good- 

5S, purity, holiness and righteousness; and on the 
ground of this substitution, assumes to save us irre- 
spective of our works. The other holds that this 
same Divine goodness, righteousness, purity, holi- 



264 THE LAMBHOOD OF COD, ETC. 

ncss is not a substitute for our own qualities and 
character, but a God-power to create these very 
qualities and virtues in us, and thus make us meet 
for heaven. Between these two you must choose. 

The first is the speculative view of the Gospel ; the 
second, the practical. The first is the sclwlastic view ; 
the second, the Biblical. The former is the legal 
conception ; the latter, the moral and spiritual. One 
is the symbolical and ceremonial and ritual view ; 
the other is the ethical, real, actual, personal, vital 
view. The first-named holds that faith alone saves 
without works; the last says that faith is good for 
nothing except it be substantiated and proved by 
works. 

Hence the corresponding division upon the whole 
matter of human responsibility. Both, you know, 
quote the passage, " Work out your salvation with 
fear and trembling ; " but while on the one hand it is 
held that God is supposed to take hold of man by 
absolute power, just as you may hitch your team to 
the plough and drag it through whether it will or 
not ; on the other hand it is claimed that God and 
all that is revealed of Him coming into contact with 
acts as a vital inspiration, as a vital motive-power 
upon us, whereby all our dormant powers and sleep- 
ing capacities are roused into action, and so man is 
put upon conscious endeavor Godward in his own 
behalf. Both quote this other passage, " Without 
me ye can do nothing." They are the words of 
Christ; but while one holds that Christ uses man, 
assuming to take him up in his arms and carry him 



worker With cod. 265 

along passively, without any endeavor on man's 
part; the other holds tli.it man must use Christ 
the power of God in Christ, as a help, laying hold 
of Him, as it were, the power of eternal life. Man 
must use these Divine helps, without which he can do 
nothing, that they may stay his infirmities and be- 
come strength in place of his weakness, enabling 
him to do what without them he could not do. It 
is a glorious consolation, that God does not require 
us to do anything without that help; but it is an 
equally strong and irrevocable truth, that that help 
being given, we shall accomplish nothing unless we 
use it. 

Here is where we come into the grand co-opera- 
tion. Paul speaks of men as co-workers with God. 
Here God's heart works, turns, labors towards us, in 
order that it may wake ours responsive to it ; a grand 
reciprocity of human and Divine action and life, 
taking away sin. Divine inspiration throbbing down 
out of the very Lambhood of God into human hearts, 
that aspiration may be born and love be awakened, 
reciprocating the love that first loved us — this re- 
generates and saves. 

The whole matter of these two opinions, these two 
modes of thinking of the Gospel, standing opposite 
each other, maybe summed up thus : One holds that 
the Gospel of Christ is of no advantage to man, any 
further than that gospel is in him changing his char- 
acter from wrong to right, from stain to purity, from 
weakness to power, from impotence to high strength ; 
of no sort of use touching salvation outside of man 
23 



266 THE LAMBHOOD OF COD, ETC. 

— but must come inside of him, and be a reality in 
his personal character. That is one view. The other 
view leaves out of the question human w r orks and 
human character, and looks upon salvation as some- 
thin cuted outside of man's nature, in God, in 
his government or Christ; holding that this Divine 
work and righteousness thus provided, are to be sub- 
stituted in place of man's works and righteousness; 
and on this ground man is to be saved. This is the 
other view. Or briefer still : One presents the Gospel 
as a power to create in man a heavenly character ; 
the other regards it as offering a substitute for such 
character. So much for the difference. 

This, then, is the application of the Lambhood of 
God to the wants of mankind, and the practical de- 
velopment of its economy in the sphere of human 
nature. Tims as moral beings we are brought into 
grand concurrent action with God, and the true idea 
of the Gospel problem is stated. 

And how beautiful all this seems ! How like the 
charm of a benediction it comes down from the skies 
and beyond the skies, upon our parched and needy 
earth of humanity! What grandeur, what far-reach- 
ing scope of wisdom, love and power, from the foun- 
dation of the world ! Fearful stress of the paternal 
heart, native to that heart, throbbing out in time to 
touch you and me, waking responsively the filial 
tear, the filial repentance, the filial love, that the 
child and the Father may be one again! This 
ity of life, this forceful searching virtue of God 
pervading man's nature and purging the very texture 



D 
how genial, how beautiful, how hopeful] ( \ 

where is the faith that Will turn away from this to 

dream of a better ? 

For it is no dry externalism, you sec; it is no dry, 

ted, fiery legalism; but the mellow summer of 

God, all dripping with dew upon the very expectancy 

of our native bud and bloom, to bring it fortli to fruit 
and perfectnes 

God is no hard master put in this way — O no. 
lie never appears a hard master when we ask the 
New Testament for Ilim, or the Old one when we 
get down beneath the letter; for He is all the time 
sending the rain upon the unjust as well as the just, 
starting in us intelligence and hunger; suffering our 
very dereliction, our very ingratitude, our very sins 
even, that we may finally come to right and truth 
and love. 

If you sin, O soul, you do not sin in an economy 
of government that dooms you to disaster in the 
premises ; there is a second opportunity for you. If 
you sin, don't tarry long over your sin; all you need 
in your heart is, just to feel that grief which your sin 
has created in the heart of God. Your sin does not 
sting Him to rage; your sin does not unsheathe the 
flaming sceptre of his fury; it breaks the tear foun- 
tain of his nature — that very nature which I mean 
by the Lambhood of God the Father. 

This is the deep, vital, gentle power that is work- 
ing wonders in the world. At first the world was 
hard, crude, undeveloped ; and it could not make 
much show. God had to handle it with a rough 



268 THE LAMBHOOD OF GOD, ETC.. 

share. But Providence is mellowing the soul of 
humanity; this gentle tear-life of God is working 

the very roots of the world, and throwing up beauty 
and sweetness and bloom. Why, don't you know 
this is just the way God is making the second Eden? 
And when lie gets the spiritual Eden — the new 
Eden — done, no serpent will whisper there; no 
frailty will discrown manhood or soil the charm of 
womanhood. That will be the Paradise Confirmed. 
Unto that all this Gospel economy is tending. That 
is what it is all for; that is what it all means. 

Trust in God, then, O soul. Give your heart to 
his heart. If He makes it ache and weep, your 
earthly father did the same when you were a child; 
and when manhood's years came, O how you 
thanked him for the strong hand and the severe 
rein ! 

There is no favoritism in this world of God; there 
is no partiality or respect of persons. Sorrow is for 
the whole world and for the sins of the world. The 
gates are open to all the world ; whosoever accepts, 
es in ; whosoever scorns, he alone must bear it; 
there is no excuse; ever\' lip is sealed. 

Thank God tor life in such a world, in such a gov- 
ernment. Thank Him for the glorious outlook into 
.1 world that shall be cloudless, tearless, deathless. 
Thank Him when you have heart-aches that are 
throbbing out by a kind of stressful maternity, the 
birth of these higher revelations and restorations, 
tin- coming back of those confidences committed to 
i in the dark hours. Thank Him for the mend- 



REAS '/<>v. 

ing of the broken chains, and for the re-living of the 
withered flowers of beauty and charm. Thank God 
for these, and for the depths of faith that can receive 
and appropriate them, and for the Gospel that gives 
this right 

For every beaut}- that shall retint the faded skies 
of life; for every flower that shall blush again upon 
its parched pathway; for every lamp that shall re- 
lume its chambers of bight and silence; and for 
every crowned victor that shall spring from its 
graves, thank Him ; and by the gift become like the 
Giver. 

From the Lambhood of God that taketh away the 
sin of the world, shoots up the great exultation: 

See Truth, Love and Mercy in triumph descending, 
And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom; 

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, 
And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb. 

*3* 



XVIII. 
CHRISTIANITY AND HER FOES. 

Heaven and earth shall pass aivay, but my 
11 ' rd shall not pass away. — Matth. v. 1 8. 

A man's foes shall be they of his oiun house- 
hold. — Matthew x. 36. 

Cod hath made us able ministers of the X< W 
Testament, not of the letter but of the 
spirit. — 2 Corinthians iii. 6. 

Fie that hath not the spirit of Christ, is none 
of his. — Romans viii. 9. 

If this counsel or this work be of man, it ivill 
came to naught; but if it be of God, 
cannot overthrow it. — Acts v. 38, 39. 

CHRISTIANITY ever since its birth, has had its 
so-called foes. There has always been a great 
deal of anxiety about its fortunes. Men stood in 
fear and trembling with respect to it before Celsus, 
Porphyry, Julian, and hosts of others attacking it 
externally. Even Paul himself was branded as a 
heretic opposed to the true faith. Look a little at 
this matter of solicitude. 

A great and leading foe, spotted as opposed to 
Christianity, is and has been called Science. Paul 
-peaks of this. Put what lie had in mind by science 
in that day, was, of course, the science that existed 
then; the speculations and philosophical theories of 
men. True science had not yet been born. There- 
fore we feel in this day at liberty to say, that neither 

270 



i /.ISM AND SCEPTICISM. 271 

religious nor any other truth, is in any peril whatc\ 
from / nee. For true science is the thinking of 

God. While false science, like every falsity in the 

thinking of man, is sure to dispose of itself. All lies 
are harmless in the end. For like a combination of 
factors, one of which is a cipher, the product is frus- 
tration — nothing. 

Another great enemy, which is and has been feared, 
is called Rationalism. I know these names are used 
as nick-names mainly ; but then a careful observer 
of the human mind understands that a nick-name is 
all the stock in trade which a great many have. It 
is. fact, logic and devotion combined. It exhausts 
their methods of warfare; it exhausts their resources 
generally. Truth, whether religious or any other, 
has never anything to fear from reason — never. 
Reason in us helps to make the image of God ; it is 
the organ his intelligence holds converse with. The 
great thing to be feared just here is not reason but 
////-reason — the lack of reason ; the darkness which its 
luminous orb should replace. My people are de- 
stroyed from lack of knowledge, said the Prophet ; 
and that is what every true prophet has said in this 
earth. The great thing to be feared is, not this grand 
function of God in the world, but its broken half; rea- 
son with one wing, with one foot ; reason as a cold 
dead taper snuffed out, or carried about unlighted in 
the world. Thence come the blind leading the blind. 

Another reputed foe has been christened Doubt or 
Scepticism. What does that word mean? Skcptomai y 
a Greek word, means to inspect, to examine, to care- 



272 CHRISTIANITY AND HER FOES. 

full\' scrutinize any matter presented, as to whether 
it is worthy of credence or not. This kind of doubt 
is the balance of credulity; a pausing for evidence; 
a demand for evidence. This questioning is the only 
uaid against superstition and cheat. Did you 
ever think that no man ever believed anything 
with more strength than he doubted the opposite? 
Did it ever occur to you that every action of your 
mind, when your credence is challenged, exercises 
itself under a double-poled function? If you come 
to the fork of the road, just in proportion as you be- 
lieve the right to be the true way, you doubt the left. 
If you listen to the different statements made by two 
men on the same matter, just in proportion as you 
doubt one you believe the other. Doubt is as good 
a thing as faith, if you are careful as to what it refers. 
You had better doubt the devil than believe in him. 
You had better doubt a lie, than have faith in it. 
Yc t men who follow the trade of jugglers have used 
this word "doubt" as a scarecrow, and called men 
sceptics who only doubted the divinity of the assail- 
ants' profession. The very first thing Christianity 
did in the world, was to challenge inspection from 
all minds, commanding them to search its authorities, 
ev< n the very documents that assume to hold it and 
vouch for its genuineness. 

Another foe has been named Infidelity. Well, this 
word has a meaning — a strong meaning. But al- 
lien you use it or hear it used, ask yourself 

to what it is referred. Infidelity means disloyalty, 
lithfulness, disbelief But I had infinitely rather 



TTY AND WORLDLINl 273 

be infidel towards a falsehood, than to become a 1 
liever in falsehood I had vastly rather be unfaithful 
towards wrong, than to be faithful to it. It depends 
always upon what you are talking about, and how 
you understand yourself. For myself, I never feel 
better than sometimes when I am called infidel — for 
then, at least, I am sure that I am in good company. 
Our reading has to go but a little way to find that 
some of the brightest, purest and noblest of Chris- 
tian men on earth, have been branded as "infidels." 
You have but to go down into the Turkish Empire 
to find yourself and all Christendom branded as 
11 infidel dogs." Of course, they are Arabs and Bar- 
barians and Bedouins who say this ; but they claim to 
be the only orthodox believers in the world. One 
of the brightest luminaries in the most famed theo- 
logical seminary in the land, within our memory, 
was called an infidel because of some of his interpre- 
tations of the Bible. To determine whether a so- 
called infidel is a foe to Christianity or not, you must 
first understand clearly and distinctly to what the 
word is applied, who applies it, and far what ^purpose. 
Again: Worldliiicss, or secularism, has been re- 
garded as hostile to Christianity. YVorldliness, tech- 
nically and actually, has stood as the great anti-Christ 
of faith. God on one side, and worldliness on the 
other, makes the battle. But when w T e examine, it 
will appear an easy thing for any boy to cipher out, 
whether Omnipotence on one side will be likely to 
be overthrown by the weaker party on the other. 

Read the last passage I quoted from the Acts : " If 

S 



2/4 CHRISTIANITY AND H 

this counsel and this work be of man, it will come 
to naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot overth 

I )ne of the greatest evils Christianity has been 

obliged to suffer, has come from this scepticism of 
faith, this want o\ confidence by men in their own 

belief The Romanist says, Protestantism is the 
great foe to Christianity. Protestantism replies, 
Romanism is the great destructive enginery against 
Christianity. .And so the indictment goes on. 
]>ut let us talk a little more directly and positively. 

The real foes of Christianity are such as these: 
First, those who, whether inside the church or out- 
side the church, insist upon making a definition of 
Christianity out of its accidents; those who insist 
that the very essence and foundation of this religion 
are to be found in the material, sensuous, and phe- 
nomenal aspects of it. If a man outside the church 
wishes to stigmatize Christianity, he will get up a 
definition of it, and make that definition out of what 
Christianity sloughed off a thousand years ago. 
And when he has made his definition he will say: 
"There is your Christianity. A man of straw; a 
bundle ^\ old clothes; and what is it good for?" 
iv advocate the privilege of making the cvi- 
►n the other side, and his case is an easy one. 
Under such an arrangement you don't want but one 
law;. 

1 h • ; : nemy does the same thing — not, of 

course, with the same intent He professes to be the 

friend of Christianity. But carving her definition 

f her phenomenal aspects, her imperfect, mutable 



fNSWl 275 

and perishing accidents, he is from his position a 
greater foe to her life, health, and growth, than all 
the outside enemies that have banded against her 
They are open ; he is disguised. Persecution never 

kills truth ; false patronage is deadly. It buries the 
truth alive; incarcerates it ; suffocates it; makes a 
mummy of it, a husk, a stone; and then says, On this 
rock I build. The inside enemy is in secret league 
with the outside enemy, which twain constitute the 
great Anti-Christ of the world. 

Again : he is an enemy to Christianity whose 
method of handling it is such that the whole problem 
of Christian life, character, and culture, is made to 
consist in believing, observing and manipulating the 
external matters out of which the false definition was 
made. This kind of conventional industry, with im- 
plicit faith in it, is put in the place of Christ and his 
spirit in personal character. He who makes it a 
matter of salvation to swing with hooks in his back, 
count his beads, boast of his ancestors, or invoice his 
orthodoxy, makes the mistakes Christ came to cor- 
rect. He puts the signs of the Zodiac in place of 
the year's work. He who manages spiritual hus- 
bandry in that way, is a foe to Christianity; — not so 
much intentionally, or with malice aforethought, as 
in blindness and falseness. He is her undertaker 
more truly than her disciple. 

Another real enemy to Christianity is Bibliolatry ; 
the worship of the Book, instead of the worship of 
the God of the Book. As you read the letter of 
your friend's heart, does your heart throb towards its 



2y6 CHRISTIANITY AND HER F( 

ink and paper and seal ? Or is the great substance 
and essence of the whole thing that friend's heart? 

You read the letter again and again, seeking its 
meaning. You call in another friend and ask him 
what this sentence or that phrase means; and you 
stud\- it until, by and by, you get the whole. Then 
you can put the letter into the waste-basket, into the 
fire, and lose nothing, because the great thing it 
means is in you ; and though heaven and earth pass 
away, that meaning will still abide. We want the 
spirit, the deep life of this Book. We do not want 
ntence or a letter stricken out. Thousands of 
commentators are at work upon it, but no two of them 



agree. 



.And so you and I are driven, in our poor necessi- 
, to give the verdict ourselves. And we feel at 
liberty to do that, because the great Word has said: 
" Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;" 
" If any man will do the will, he shall know the doc- 
trine." I choose the heavenly Master, not the earthly 
masters ; and so must you. Such is not only truth, 
but Christian truth ; not only Christian truth, but 
Protestant truth through and through. And if we 
cannot read the full meaning of the Bible until we 
get into eternity, very well. I do not suppose we 
can — though a good many seem to have done it — 
seem to have sounded the whole matter, and to have 
laid it away as settled forever. But God is greater than 
all his words. Worship God, then, and not any 
mere word He has .spoken. The letter killeth, while 
the spirit giveth life evermore. 



EDI DIVINE wi;\7\ 2JJ 

Another real \oc to Christianity is a false 

iiuuent. Men do not intend 
wrong in this; but when they find out the \vr 

and still insist upon it, then they are perverse in 
purpose. 

A false conception of the Divine Government, in 
the first place, lies in the implication that it were im- 
perfect to begin with ; that in the administration of 
that government, its very functions and operations 
might come to a dead-lock, by virtue of which that 
government could not go on until relieved and ena- 
bled to act by some extraneous aid coming to its res- 
cue. Whereas the truth is, that that government was 
and is able and competent, from first to last, without 
any additional legislation, without any amendment 
or improvement in any sense. Such is the true con- 
ception. Hence, from the false conception, men 
have ever regarded Christ and the Gospel and 
Christianity as the means by which that govern- 
ment is secured, established, and its integrity main- 
tained. 

But still another false conception lies in assuming 
that the grand gift of Christianity contemplates sin 
and only sin in the world ; nothing but mortal or 
moral sickness. Whereas the Gospel is the very 
staff of life — nutriment for the healthy soul, as well 
as medicine for the diseased. " I am the bread of 
life come down from heaven," says the great Pro- 
vider. It is for stimulating growth as well as for 
curing sin and purifying from evil. We want the 
whole truth, and not the half only; and he is a foe 
24 



2;8 RISTIANITY AND HER FOES. 

to Christianity who smites her in twain, and would 
1 ave her thus half dead by the way. 

Another false conception lies in the assumption 
that the Gospel of Christianity seeks to introduce a 
Substitute for purity and holiness, instead of the vir- 
themselves. The truth is, that the government 
of God contemplates and demands these virtues in 
each one of us, and gave Christianity as the power 
to Cf uch righteousness and true holiness in us 

personally. It is no fiction, therefore — no compli- 
mentary card which the bankrupt may present at the 
exchequer of the skies, saying, Take this instead of 
what I owe. Why, the punctilious Frenchman acted 
upon better wisdom — for there was less profanation 
in it — when he approached the altar and dropped 
his card upon it, paying thus his respects to the Al- 
hty and his duty. These, and matters like these, 
constitute the real, biting, damaging hostility to vital 
and essential Christianity. 

Another foe is the assumed antagonism of Chris- 
tianity and other truth. I Say it is assumed, because 
it is a false notion that science and reason are hos- 
tile to this faith ; incompatible with it ; irreconcilable. 
The\- are all brethren of the same Father. 

[] another false foe lies in the thought that 
nothing but science is religion ; that the only religion 
a man wants is scientific truth. 

Equally false is the foe who declares that there 

shall be no sc Xt all about religion. All truth is 

fraternal with Christian truth. This is not a divided 

in the kingdom of God or the kingdom 



REl 1.1 ///< • W, AND . 279 

humanity. I said in the beginning that scien 
is nothing but the thinking of God; and can you 
have any religion that disfellowships the thinking of 

God ? One of the greatest curses that have left their 

blight on the religious world, is this divorce of Chris- 
tianity from the light of reason and common sense ; 
the putting out of the torch of science, the flamil 
stars, the glory of the emerald and the topaz about 
the throne, whose dim reflection is God's candle in 
the earth. 

Now, with such a front presented as the definition 
of Christianity, do you wonder that the intelligence 
of mankind stands aloof from it, and is arrayed 
against it? With such a definition, do you wonder 
that God raised up Voltaires and Humes and the 
sharp critics of later times to pick the flaws ? Do 
you wonder that in this age of the world men stand 
forth and protest against the whole " syllabus " of 
such presentation ? Why, under this view you see 
science and religion arrayed against each other ; God 
in nature and God in grace, God in astronomy, geol- 
ogy, Genesis and the soul, put into interminable con- 
flict. Under such a conception of Christianity reason 
stands arrayed against it ; civilization is against it ; 
all progress and improvement dead against it; man- 
hood ignores it, and God himself discards the whole 
thing. This false putting of the matter has made all 
the real infidels in the world. It has dwarfed pulpits, 
depopulated churches, and will continue to depopu- 
late them just in proportion as it is insisted on. A 
man's old clothes are not the man; last year's alma- 



2So CHRL ND HER FOES. 

tut of date this year; the implements of hus- 
bandry that raise the wheat, and the stubble left in 
are not the bread of life. 
I lod made the human soul for truth : and although 
the soul may not fully understand the cheat and jug- 
glery, there is yet something in man that will rise up 
in some sixteenth and nineteenth century, and utter 
md protest of instinct and inspiration against 
the ch This very truth-instinct has been the 

md of all the heaving protests and all the reac- 
tions in the world — the swinging of the pendulum 
to and fro in the movements of mind and history. 
n such an assumed, authoritative deliverance of 
Christianity, carved out of the mere perishable aspects 
of it, a substitution of phenomena in the place of per- 
sistent life or the essential spirit and true principle of 
the thing, comes delusion and corruption. Of course 
there must be iv\ And heaven itself is becom- 

populated from the so-called infidels who make 
up this army ntients — and from heretics like 

111 .md sceptics like Luther. 

that we are obliged in all this push and pull of 

matters just to fall back upon the grand words of 

that old Pharisee — Gamaliel — for there was more 

' in the sunset of the old dispensation than in all 

.. ill-o'-the-wisps we have been speaking of 

around the swamps ofthe Christian ages; "If this 

use! and this work be of man, it will come to 

hi; but if it be ofGod, ye cannot overthrow it.'' 

And th ill may stand secure. You may 

ell battle the advance of the stars as battle any 



Ml WITH PROVIDl ' 28l 

truth of God. It is only the man-part that is shifting 

and vanishing; the mere human aspect of the sub- 
ject; the crude, imperfect instrumentalities; the early 

tpery and perishable phenomena. These will come 
to naught; these will pass away. And he who insists 
upon making a definition of Christianity out of them, 
makes it of fiction, of the dust of the tombs. I le who 
would build the everlasting kingdom upon such 
foundation, builds upon sand; and the storm is on 
the way that indeed Shall overthrow it. While what 
God builds shall rise, more and more resplendent 
without end. 

Still men cry, peril! danger! Not a thousand 
years ago, in civilized England, the inventor of 
umbrellas was stigmatized as an infidel for inter- 
rupting the designs of Providence with regard to 
rainy weather; for when the showers fell it was 
evident God meant that men should get wet. Not 
long since the self-constituted censorship of godli- 
ness stigmatized the scientific man as an infidel, 
who brought that balm and God-gift into the world, 
Atuestketies. By the aid of this, the most violent 
surgical operation can be performed, while pain 
is banished into dream-land. The design of Provi- 
dence is, it was claimed, that if a man's limb must 
be amputated, it should ache ; and the inventor frus- 
trated that design. 

Why, within our memory also, the introduction 
of the practice of vaccination to prevent such pesti- 
lences as ravage whole communities, was stigmatized 
as the work of the devil ; because disease is, by its 



282 CHRISTIANITY AND HER /< 

nature, made contagious by God, and man should 
not interfere with God's doings. The plagues of the 
Old World came under the same handling; and the 
men who sought to stay them, and stop them en- 
tirely, were charged with infidelity. It was a med- 
dling with Providence. That kind of logic has 
always existed in the world ; it exists still. Thou- 
sands of men and women, conscientious and amiable, 
but not reliable in stress of weather, have wrapped 
themselves in their superstitions and hid themselves 
when fear came; and still they hide. 

Also, because of this very thing, many seek to 

work a kind of contraband trade. In times of trial, 

when the chaff is sifted from the wheat and driven 

away by the winds, they speculate in ignorance and 

superstition. When the fire rages and all things are 

perturbed, then they run up false flags, attempting to 

make grand gains; if not in cotton, as in war times, 

then in sectarianism always belligerent. They run 

up these flags or devices for the capture of wandering 

mu\ unsuspecting virtue on the seas. You do 

n«»t wonder, then, that men observing these things, 

• the question as to what, after all, there is in 

Christianity to boast of; whether there is anything 

I value in it at all. 

[o that question 1 am glad to reply for one, by 

-simply facts. Here is a power that 

d for eighteen hundred years, phenomenally, 

illy announced, in Providence. It has stood 

ami forever in th< nee and significance 

the thing itself. But as it has stood the vicissi- 



THE GRANDEST CIVILIZATION, 283 

tud 1 fortunes of human life thus far, and is 

stronger to-day than ever, this fact is a witness for 

it. I know it does not command the suffrage of a 
majority of mankind ; but when you see what it has 
done while yet in its youth, compared with the hoary 
age of some other religions, there is ixfact, and quite 
enough for you. 

And here is another fact. You will find that 
Christianity is allied with the strongest nations of 
the earth. Wherever there is the most cultivated 
brain, the grandest civilization under law, and the 
noblest uplifting of man, there you will find the 
Christian religion. This is an additional fact. 

As you interpret it, basing its certitudes not upon 
phenomena, but upon essence, upon spirit, upon en- 
during principles, you will find that the very heart- 
throb of Christianity, its deepest life and inspiration, 
are in harmony with the heart-throb of the consti- 
tution of Nature. Well might the old Pharisee say, 
though he did not fully comprehend his own grand 
words, " If this counsel or this work be of man, it 
will come to naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot 
overthrow it." Just so far as these profound theses 
of the Christian religion strike hands with the theses 
and laws of God **i creation, it cannot be overthrown. 
Though heaven and earth pass away, it will stand. 
And if all we often say shall prove true at last, 
namely, that there is another world, another order 
and dynasty of existence, then even that grander 
scale and order may give place to a still higher, and 
yet Christian truth endure. 



284 CHRISTIANITY AND HER F( 

Another -rand fact is : Not only docs Christianity- 
accord with the "constitution and course of nature" 
in the material world, but she accords better than 
any other religion with the constitution of human 
nature, with the soul of man and the law of his 
beiiv 1 that when we shall see all these grand 

chords striking from within and without, when 
world answers to world, when the whole tide of 
national progress, the triumphs of reason, the vic- 
tories of science, and the grander prophecies of 
intuition and instinct, all wave aloft their signs of 
fraternal greeting, we need not be much alarmed or 
troubled that we are in this great enterprise, and 
that we strike hands with such fellowships and such 
certitudes. We ma>' be peaceful ; we may be power- 
ful. And as the mere phenomenal aspect is brushed 
away* as the scaffolding shall be taken down stage 
after stage, and the mystic hieroglyphics intcrpiv 

<:e that the mighty destiny of Christianity 
IS in the nature of things — just where we have 
always put it; and that her glory towers up more 
estic than temples made with hands, beyond 
phenomena, beyond time, to be eternal in the heav- 
ens. It is mightier than man, and man shall not 
prevail against it. It is wiser than man, so no genius 
of evil shall circumvent it. 

I will tell you some real ugly foes to Christianity 

to all truth; foes to light, foes to purity, 

I 1 righteousness. Ignorance is one Men are 

Ways to be blamed for their ignorance, but it 

to be lamented. It is never a helping 



HYPOCRISY, r, INDOLENi 

hand to truth. Hypocrisy is anothei Tin- gentle 

Na , full of the fragrance of heaven, uttered no 

violent word save in one instance ; and that was 
linst hypocrisy, the masked presence that men 

act behind. Another is Bigotry. Bigotry — it is 
the whole man put into a Chinese slipper and kept 

there. It is a stint and stench upon the human 
name that makes man unpresentable wherever there 
is light; liberty or nobleness. Another real foe is 
Guile. Deceit is a liar; trickery is a pious fraud — 
secret, polished, vulgar, snake-like, hidden away and 
hissing out of darkness, ashamed of its own tongue 
and face and heart. If it has never been canonized, 
it certainly has been the chronic plague of religion. 
Another ugly foe to Christianity is Indolence — apt 
to be coupled with ignorance, when it constitutes 
that contentment which says, " I don't want to know 
any more than I do ; I would rather rest in things 
as they have been made to my hand, whether right 
or wrong, than take the trouble of investigating 
and making wrong right." Such indolence would 
sooner ship on board some old leaky, rickety craft, 
than pay the necessary cost of a safe transit on 
reliable bottoms — using the logic that thousands 
had gone over safely before. But indolence forgets 
that the worm has been at work ever since, and that 
it is time for that which is worn out to be " folded 
away." Navigation, however, lives and commerce 
lives ; seas are spanned and continents are traversed — 
and will be more and more, though all the earlier 
rafts and hulks go to the bottom, and the footman 
and postilion are heard of no more. 



CHRISTIANITY AND HER Fi . 

Gr power is another ugly enemy to a live 

Christianity; tyranny, despotism ; the enthroning of 

one man over the brain and conscience of another; 
the demand (A' worship paid to man instead of God ; 
taking leave and authority from a poor frail mortal, 

>lc even than the suppliant, instead of 
acknowledging the Father in heaven alone. All 
these are enemies, and it were high time they were 
banished, having a name in the world only by the 
e of memory and history. 
We pause then in our review upon just this: He 
who hath the spirit of Christ is christly ; he who 
hath the spirit of God is godly; he who hath the 
thought of God inwardly, is so far reconciled to 
Him. The gates of hell shall not prevail against 
the Gospel of God, against the Christian religion, so 
sure as the fundamental truths thereof were born 
from the brain and heart of the Most High. 

And you, soul, so far as you have the Spirit of 
that Gospel instead of the letter, will stand. Just in 
portion as you carve your thought and definition 
of Christianity out of the heart and thoughts of the 
Almighty, the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
you. 

This whole matter is undergoing a rchandling ; 
man himself is undergoing a readjustment as to it. 
ry after story of ancient scaffoldings are coming 
\ n ; higher ones are thrown up ; and the building 
lily rises. Some think they can see its dome 
already glittering among the clouds. Have some- 
thin ' I oul, to put into that immortal edifice. Do 
your all in the mere scaffolding. 



THE VICTORS AND HARPERS. 2&J 

Then, when the bells shall be ringing for the 
great convocation, when the grand orchestra shall 
be breaking out up there, your voice will not be 

sing ; you will be among the victors and han 
Though the storm rages to-day, and though the drift 
of time goes down-stream, in patience, in grand con- 
fidence and steadfastness, possess your soul. 



XIX. 

PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS— THE RELIGION 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Verify T say unto you, among them that 

art bom of 'women there hath not 
risen a greater than John the Bap- 
tist. — Matthew xi. u. 

THAT is high testimony standing in exactly the 
words of Christ Himself. And yet it is added : 
" The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater 
than he." 

This greatest born in time is designated as the 
herald Preacher, the Harbinger of the New Dispen- 
sation ; the Forerunner of Christ. 

First we find him upon the banks of the old his- 
toric river, the Jordan, preaching to the multitudes, 
and baptizing them in its waters. Prophecy for 
centuries had been foretelling a Voice crying in the 
wilderness " Prepare ye the way of the Lord ; " and 
when this ancient utterance broke from the lips of 
the grim, austere prophet of the hour, prefaced by 
the words M / am he" it was not strange that omens 

•uld have attended his birth. 

From childhood, in which he was said to have 

n "full of the Holy Ghost," years passed on — 

ition — during which he knew naught 

of the world but his desert life. There the plastic 

wonder of early years felt the moulding touch of the 

288 



KEY-NOTE OF JOHN'S PREACHING. 

around him. He became familiar with 
And den and wild beast; he communed with 
the stately stillness of mountains, the solitude of the 
wilderness and the silence of the desert sea. These 
were his tutors ; these were God's fountains of inspi- 
ration and power. 

In the fullness of his time he suddenly appeared on 
the stage of the living world, and, like a thunder- 
clap fro'm the still sky, broke upon men with the 
startling word, Repent/ This was the keynote of his 
mission. His hour had come, and he was ready for 
his work. 

Thence ensued the meeting with Christ, the bap- 
tism of the " Greater " at the hands of the less ; and 
from that august moment in which the Old was 
handed over to the New, and the desert passed into 
the garden, the former began to "decrease," and the 
latter to " increase." 

This was at a marked period of the world; a time 
of great commotion, distraction and drifting un- 
certainty. The Roman tread was everywhere, and 
everywhere hated. Formalism reigned, and had 
become a weariness to patience and a drag on the 
better nature of man. No voice of living prophecy 
had been heard for well-nigh five hundred years ; 
hope was low and heart was heavy and life at stag- 
nant ebb. Well might the word, Repent ! startle and 
thrill the world's dull hour. 

But in such Divine words of life-giving energy 
there is not only hope but battle. The end of the 
herald preacher was not a crown, but a prison and 
25 T 



290 RELIG1 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

the official act of the executioner. The dissolute 
life of I [erod felt the fire of the words of truth, and 
his wrath was kindled. The character and life of the 
corrupt tyrant could not bear the searching scrutiny 
of the Baptist's morality, and vengeance determined 
on his destruction. Had John the Baptist preached 
the old forms and ceremonies of bygone ages, the 
outlived notions of Moses and the patriarchs about 
herbs, meats, pots, pitchers, cups and phylacteries, 
his head had been safe enough. Herod could have 
danced with Herodius or her daughter, and been as 
pious a-, anybody. But, Repent! "it is not lawful 
that thou shouldst have her," was a scandal to his 
"faith" Salvation by a religion that leaves out 
morality, is not peculiar to modern times. This was 
the sunken snag along the channel of the new river 
of life, against which the divinely-freighted argosy 
of John the Baptist struck and went clown — for the 
hour. The hulk perished, but the cargo was a Divine 

d, that floated upon the writers, and is giving bread 

the world after these " many days." 
John was not the Christ, but his usher; the one 
the acorn, the other the oak; the one the morning 
twilight, the other the risen sun ; the one the vernal 

1-time, the Other the summer growth and the 
autumn harvest. 

The next day after the Jordan meeting, these two, 
the Herald and tin- Heralded, parted — never to 

mei ' H. The ( >ld gave its hand to the New, and 

the New answered back in hearty grasp. The one 

. the other acceded. The latent germ of 



HAD SOMETHING TO SAY. 291 

ages had blossomed out into the summer of the great 
Divine Year, and henceforth this was to " increase/ 1 

and that to "decrease." Retreating, retreating, 
fading, vanishing, rolls back the glory that has 

been ; while that which is to be, is towering, ad- 
vancing, culminating in splendor and power, as the 
ages unfold their drama. Roman dungeons are 
strong ; tyrants and bigots have been mighty in the 
earth ; but bigots and tyrants and assassins in the 
name of God, have seen their brightest day; for 
truth rolls on, mighty as God Himself, and her chariot 
bears the victors. 

No greater born of woman ! Wherein lies the 
pre-eminence ? 

1. The preacher had some thing to say. He was 
charged with a message; and, like Paul after him, 
" Woe is me, if I speak not." John was no " re- 
peater; " no reciter of old paradigms; no retailer of 
venerable hearsays already well enough known. He 
had something of his own to say, fresh and living, 
given to him by God. This gave him a right to say 
it ; nay, was a necessity laid upon him. This gives 
any man a right ; and it is all the right of his com- 
mission to speak at all. 

2. He knew what it was he was to speak — the 
grounds of it and the reason for it. He had pon- 
dered it in solitude; he had communed with it on 
the heights of silence and inspiration. His con- 
ceptions were clear, his purposes distinct, his con- 
victions profound, his object definite, his ultimate 
designs comprehensive. 



292 RELJ THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

3. I lis thought was in advance of his time. This 
panoplied him as well as imperiled him. Because 
he thought and spoke for ages to come, he found 
himself out of harmony with the average thought 
of his time, as well as under its ban. But herein he 
was Strong, also ; and without this striking ahead, no 
man advances. I lis words thrilled with inspiration 
from ages unborn. By underground wires he was 
in communication with eras and evolutions that had 
not been bulletined along the accustomed ways of 
men. Hence his fitness as a herald. Thus histories 
are summed up in single lives in advance. 

4. This man was fired with a deathless enthusiasm. 
This fire was born in him ; it was fanned in his desert 
life; it glowed by the Jordan; it flamed among the 
people; it waxed before Herod; it quailed not in 

n's dungeon; it is a glory and consuming power 
to-day. No life can be above stale mediocrity with- 
out this inward glow and passion called enthusi- 
asm. Kindled from truth and eternal principles, it 
is "God in us." It is the root of all heroism; it 
made the herald preacher daring unto death. 

5. This nourished the root of unflinching fidelity; 
it bred the passion of unapproachable loyalty; it 
consecrated the law of his mission as his only law; 
it made him able to take all consequences; and in 

5 of death to link truth to immortal life. So 
surpassingly great in the world, peerless 
born of women. 
The application of the ethical element in Chris- 
tianity to human life and character is the key-note 



JOHN AX RD. 

of the Dispensation. Repent! reform! are the words 
that introduced it; and as was the key, so is the 

song. Christianity may be preached as a theory or 

a rite, and trouble nobody ; but Christianity preached 
as repentance and reformation, never failed to stir up 
the Herods of life ; and never will. Life and charac- 
ter like to be unmolested. Men are prone to rely 
upon outside saviors as their substitute, making 
theories and beliefs responsible for all their short- 
comings. Had John the Baptist preached this way, 
all the Scribes and Pharisees and Tetrarchs and 
Judges in Judea would have flocked around him. 
There would have been no execution, no prisons, no 
grumbling. Had Christ preached thus, there had 
been no cross and no victim. John and Jesus 
are one ; the Sermon on the Mount and " Repent ! " 
M Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees," and " who 
hath warned you," are one gospel from two preachers, 
the Herald and the Heralded. Personal righteous- 
ness is the religion of the New Testament. Substi- 
tutions were learned from neither Jesus nor John. 

But is the prison a finality? Is the Harbinger 
really dead? Christ comes the fulfillment of John ; 
to-day is the fulfillment of Christ; and to-morrow 
will be the fulfillment of to-day. The seed away 
back in the beginning, blossoms and fruits all along 
the fields of the future. Religion, so far as it has 
any fitness to man, is designed to make the world 
better, nobler, truer, purer. Aside from this result, 
Christianity is no better than an/' other religion. 

Because of the laying of the hand directly upon life 
25* 



294 - atch r - 

and characterj tyrants have hated its power, and 
"substitutionists" have disparaged its morality. The 

ChristS and the Gods that men have made, have been 
praised and worshipped and believed in and trusted 
\y more, in all ages of the world, than the one 
God of Christ, and the one Christ of God. Who 
shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? was the 
( Oriental cry. " I le that hath clean hands and a pure 
heart," was the Divine answer. And men who have 
s.iid it ever since have been stoned. 

The herald Preacher fell ; the heralded Preacher 
fell ; they both went down ; but the fall of both was 
for the rising of many. The acorn perishes; the oak 
lives for evermore. The planters arc for the endless 
to-morrow. Truth is God's presence ever breaking, 
ever rending old limitations, bursting the husk in 
which it was planted — the prisons which hold it for 
a time. Around the silence of the tombs where the 
valiant sleep, crowns are shaping, and amaranths put 
forth the bud whose bloom shall never fade. Beneath 
old battle-fields, silent now forever, but over which 
tyranny and bigotry and vice once drove their 
triumphant chariots, songs of truth, purity, fortitude 
and love are now writing their scores for the final 
jubilee. 

B a herald then, O soul ! — a herald of truth. Be 

a harbinger of a New Dispensation, and stand forth 

a- the prophet of something better — vastly better 

i anything th.it ever has been. The conflict shall 

and more be behind you ; the jar and the tumult 

and the carnage thereof, shall retreat into deeper and 



/ K 

per silence; while th hall loom up before 

tnd rising in power and divinen* 
For the stress of patience and the valor of truth, 
there are always fadeless garlands; for enthusi 
that is of God, and heroism bom from beyond the 
fight, there are altars more than priestly, and crowns 

more than kingly. Manhood is royaler than scep- 
tres ; Womanhood, diviner than shrines or lu 
waters. Beyond the dim haze that veils it now, in 
golden light and beneath skies of pearl there sleeps 
a Coronation Day for both. 

Is there aught greater or grander in life than to be 
Heralds and Harbingers of that Day? 



XX. 

A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE OLD DISPENSA- 
TION AND THE NEW. 

m that time Jesus began to preach and 
to say, Repent! for the kingdom of 
J haven is at hand. — Matthew iv. 17. 

'THHIS is designed to follow the sermon of last 
-L Sunday morning, as the summer follows the 
spring. That gave religion as it fell from the lips of 
the Herald Preacher; this, as from the lips of Him 
whom the Herald introduced. 

" From that time began Jesus to preach and to say, 
Repent!" that is, after the time of preparation. As 
the Forerunner went into the desert byway of com- 
munion, thought, finding out where he was, what he 
was to do and how to do it, and then came forth and 
spake; so Christ retreated from the early hours of 
childhood, from the haunts of the people, from the 
es of his nation, into obscurity. Even after his 
announcement by John the Baptist, He went into 
the wilderness Himself — into the desert — and there 
*ed through an experimental preparation which 
is characterized in the \e\v Testament as the M Temp- 
tation." It means trial, simply; that is what the 
word generally signifies in the New Testament. 
Paul says: "Count it all joy when you fall into 
diverse temptations " — trials, tests and proofs of our- 

296 



AY 

selves. After " that time" came forth J< 

n to preach and say, "Repent!" taking the same 
text, taking up the very seed of his dispensation 

from the dispensation of John. Scarcely had the 
voice of the Harbinger died away, ere its resonant 
echo awoke as from behind the mountains, breaking 
in more incisive accent upon the listening world 
around. Repent! was the summons as if from the 
trumpet-lip of God. John and Christ preach one 
gospel. 

If you will notice, just a moment, this word repent 
is compounded of a double significance. It looks 
backward and it looks forward. It signifies, first, 
Drop the sins of old and accept the poena t the re* 
poena or punishment — the root-meaning of which is 
to fine oneself, to tax, to mulct. This repentance is 
a powerful self-crimination, an acknowledged retri- 
bution. Then, secondly, the meaning looks ahead; 
it is Reformation, the bringing forth of fruits meet for 
repentance. First, get clear of the old difficulties 
and thralls of the past; then, go on and do the 
proper work of life and man ; build up, reconstruct, 
rear the grand temple of which your very nature is 
the material — under a high, divine architecture, 
indeed, of which God Himself is the inspiration and 
the scheme. 

After that primal announcement of Christ, we find 
Him immediately doing — what? Preaching that 
grand inaugural discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. 
There He begins to expand his mission introduced by 
the Forerunner. He opens in those Beatitudes, so 



298 THE OLD AND NEW D ISP I r ONS. 

full of beauty and divineness : "Blessed arc they 
that mourn; for they shall be comforted. Blessed 
are the meek ; for they shall inherit the earth. 
Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness; for they shall be filled. Blessed arc 
the merciful ; for they shall obtain mercy." These 
are gentle words. I low different from the old, iron, 
brassy clang of the law! " Blessed are the peace- 
makers ; for thc\- shall be called the children of God. 
Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteous- 
s' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and perse- 
cute you and say all manner of evil against you 
falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding 
glad ; for great is your reward in heaven ; for so 
persecuted they the prophets who were before 
you." 

After this opening, the Sermon goes on with these 
sharp discriminations between the Old Dispensation 
and the New, so emphatic and searching: " Ye have 
heard it said of old, thou shalt not kill ; but I of the 
new say, he that is angry with his brother, hath the 
kill in his heart Ye have heard of old, thou shalt 
love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say, 
love thine enemy, and thy persecutor, and thy ma- 
ligner. Ye have heard of old, thou shalt not com- 
mit adulter)-; but I say the glance of the eye, and 
the pulse of the heart, are an infraction of my law. 
When thou doest thine alms, act not as the hypo- 
crites do in the synagogues and in the streets, sound- 
a trumpet that they may be heard of men. But 



C< IIS III \RCHIN< 

let not thy left hand know what thy right hand 
doeth; and thy Father who seeth in secret, shall i 
ward thee openly. When thou prayest, be not like 
the old prayers at the corners of the streets and in 
the synagogues, whose chief desire is to be .seen and 
heard of men. But enter into thy closet, and when 
thou ha^t shut the door, pray ; and thy Father who 
seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Judge not, 
lest ye be judged — and have measured to you that 
which ye measure to others. Ye have heard of old, 
an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ; but I say, 
a cheek for a cheek, and a cloak for a cloak, rather 
than retaliation in the spirit of revenge. Why be- 
holdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye ? 
Thou hypocrite ! Cast out the beam from thine own 
eye, and thou shalt better see the mote in thy neigh- 
bor's eye." 

By their fruits men are to be known, and not by 
their professions. "Lord! Lord! " never saves ; but 
a cup of cold water may ; and a visit to the sick and 
imprisoned likewise. He that heareth these say- 
ings of mine and docth them, shall live. 

Having preached this Inaugural Sermon, the foun- 
dation of his whole Gospel and Dispensation, we be- 
hold Christ passing into practical life, doing the work 
of the Christian ; doing what shall stand as the ex- 
emplification of what all men are to do, who would 
be his disciples ; works of charity, mercy, instruc- 
tion, purification ; works of reformation ; works of 
redeeming men from the grasp of evil, of lifting them 
from the sod of degradation to the crown God poises 



300 THE OLD AND NEW DISPENSATIONS. 

evermore above every man's brow ; until finally we 
come to the end, the tragic end, the test end, or finish 
of a life that knew no blight — no failure. 

Thus we perceive a fourfold order of movement. 
First, a quitting of all wrong in the past ; " cease to 
do evil." Secondly, reconstruction; a going for- 
ward, a building up, growing, " learning to do well." 
Thirdly, " Marvel not that I say unto you, ye must 
be born again ; " inspired, ingrafted, touched, exalted 
and lifted by grander forces than any in you. We 
cannot dwell on Regeneration here; it will come up 
at another time. In the fourth place, you come to 
the finish of the man, as Christ came to his own 
finish ; that is, maturity without blight ; continuing 
unto the end ; making not failure but success, even 
to the losing of life for the sake of finding it. 

Of course, all this was terrible to Jewish ears. It 
was astonishing, perplexing, bewildering. And I 
don't wonder; it was entirely natural, and not wrong 
in all respects. For who were these men? The 
favored of God; the specialized of all mankind for 
Divine preference, to whose hands the world were 
to look for every crumb of comfort and every staff 
of help. Were not they saved? Had they not the 
( )racles ? Were they not of the Fathers, the conse- 
crated, who received the promise, and who bestowed 
gifts upon all posterity? Said they, "Have we not, 
in th it family of God, the rights of primogeni- 

ture ? Are we not alone the elect ? " 

Then, look at the expectation of Israel, dreaming 
of a Messianic reign, of a might)' Comer, a conqueror 



A NEW IDEA OF RELIGION. 30 1 

that should wipe out shame and disaster from memory 

even, and scepter them with rightful sway Over the 
whole earth. But the reputed Messiah came speak- 
ing, not words of royalty, conquest and dominion, 
but Repent/ casting aside all pomp and outward 
glitter as a mere bauble. The boasted glory of 
nation, the sacredness of altar, the pride of temple 
and holiness of priest, all went for nothing. This 
new gospel, ringing out, Repent! continually, as if 
all the past were only dream, or evil! — trust and 
confidence were confounded by it. 

But not less terrible was it to the Gentile world, 
filled with pride — pride of learning, philosophy, 
science, art, and full of license. 

Those things, I say, were not wrong always. We 
don't wonder men were startled. Their idea of re- 
ligion was far different With them it was a thing 
of institutions, of beliefs, of forms and ceremonies. 
He who kept every jot and tittle of this externality, 
was the man for God. Hence that sharp discrimi- 
nation between the Old and the New in the Inaugural 
Sermon. Ye have heard it said so and so ; but / say 
so and so. It was a passage from the dominion of 
sense to the dominion of spirit; and it seemed sud- 
den, violent, to those locked in the ancient forms. 
It was a turning away from the mere circumstances 
of the man, and a fixing directly upon the matter in 
hand, the man himself. "Men, I speak to, and speak 
of, and for," says this new Teacher. All else is in- 
different. 

Without doubt, this Dispensation introduced by 
26 



302 77//: OLD AND NEW I vs. 

John the Baptist and carried on by Jesus Christ, 
involved the gr Reformation the world ever 

knew. It involved radical, immutable principles. 
Not only was it external in form, but drastically, 

ultimately internal in fact and essence ; not only local 
and temporal, but universal in its nature and purp< 
not only individual, but the scope of it included the 
whole race. It struck for broad generalities. They 

could not be developed then, but they were included 
in the spirit and purpose of the new order. Not only 
for yesterday and to-day, but for to-morrow and all 
to-morrows; there was grandeur in the conception 
and sweep of it. No single act or scene, era or 
cycle, could play the Divine drama. The plot was 
all-inclusive as time — as eternity. 

The system of transplanting in the world of nature, 
is a page from her hidden wisdom and an illustration 
of the early development of the Christian religion. 
The florist, the pomologist and the agriculturist 
will tell you that no plant will do so well left to grow 
just where its seed germinates, as it will if taken up 
and set out — transplanted. Then it will throw out 
new fibrous roots, and gather fresh contributions 
from external and varied sources, and come to growth 
and perfection. Precisely so with moral and intel- 
ial truths. Christianity had at once to be cradi- 
1 from the seed-bed where it first sprouted, and 
to be transplanted into the Gentile life. It had to be 
transplanted from the whole Jewish nation and econ- 
omy, into the great universal Cosmos or world-life, 
of provincial limitations in any sense. Not 






MK 303 



until this transplanting do we observe that Chris- 
tianity : to achieve her victories. She did 
nothing in Palestine. And Palestine t is noth- 

but the spot where she shook off the dust of her 

feet She could display no triumphs there, It is 
just so with the whole of us who stick to the old 

beds where our ideas first sprouted, and refuse to he 
transplanted, or to let in any new id ny new 

forces or contributions to our strength and life, 

Christianity could not display herself in the limited 
cradle of her birth. She must have a broad, bound- 
theatre on which to act. She cannot display 
herself now entirely. She is under limitations to- 
day. She must emancipate herself from the monop- 
oly of the church and get out into the world. Yet 
there are those who are always seeking to bind her 
to old restrictions, to churches, customs, notions, 
confining her to the primitive flower-pots in which 
she first germinated, throwing up walls and fences 
around the early gardens where she was first planted. 
In that way she would perish were she mortal. She 
must have room ; she must be transplanted into 
broader, newer, higher conditions, out of her native 
Palestine, into " all the world " of truth and life and 
man. 

There arc reform-words breaking through the still 
air of our life to-day, as startling as any that ever 
broke the slumbers of old Judaism, falling from lip 
of herald or Messiah. Gongs of retribution are rend- 
ing the air all around us — if we only had ears to 
hear — ominous as any that ever reverberated through 



304 THE OLD AND NEW DISPENSATIONS* 

1 Athens or Rome or Babylon or Jeru- 
salem. In the rel is thinking of to-day, God and 
his Christ are moving out of the monopolies of Scribes 
and Pharisees, Sacldueees, Soothsayers and Medicine- 
men, into Man's NATURE — into the actual life of the 
world. Why, pure religion is shaking from her 
Wings the accumulated dust and leaden clogs that 
have held her fast; and to-day is flying through the 
air, crying, "Repent! Repent ! for the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand." Bigots and Pharisees will have- 
leave to hide their sins beneath borrowed cloaks, 
saying : u We are more righteous than thou." Neither 
can the children of the world, always wiser than the 
<l children of light," derive any advantage merely 
from the sagacity which sees through the worn-out 
and rent garments of mere profession. No boasting 
for either. For God is breaking down the walls of 
artificial partitions and distinctions among men; He 
iring off the veils and shibboleths from one party, 
and scattering the flimsy excuses of the other. lie 
is aiming directly at the Man and the Woman per- 
sonally; at the measure of their worth, not their 
claims. God to-day, as never before, is bidding reli- 
gion seek the law of man's life and the core of his 
character; and by these to abide in her final adjudi- 
cations. This is the work of the New Dispensation 
broken upon the world by the Baptist's word " Re- 
pent/ 1 taken up by Christ through the same word, 
and carried on to this day. And on it will go, 
nd higher, conquering and to conquer. 
Precisely this, which pealed out like a trumpet- 



QUI : /ox. 305 

blast eighteen hundred v in th ncient 

bigot: ghteou and sin, — this thunder- 

tone of God in the Christ of to-day — it is this tl 
through the Pantheons of 5 

norance and idolatry, and the banqueting halls of 
corruption, and license and sin everywhere. How 
clean is your soul, O man of the nineteenth centu: 
How divine is thy life, how pure thy character, O 
woman who remembcrest the Mother of the Sacred 
One? The washing of 1 ration, — is it noth:: 

but a card in the Sorcerer's game? Is the devil of 
sin to be cast out by a sign ? Is the great spiritual 
drenching of thy life something that leaves thy life 
and character untouched? The myrrh, the frankin- 
cense and the aloes, do they sprinkle and make fra- 
grant th\- spirit, O disciple, or are they odors for thy 
garments alone? Is the sprinkling all outside ? Is 
the glory all fresco and red paint? These are ques- 
tions of the New Dispensation, not of the Old. 

Alexander Pope was scoffed at by the self-righteous 
bigots of his time, because he said : " An honest 
man is the noblest work of God." But if I had 
authority to say it, I would stand here and declare, 
that the time is coming when an Honest Man shall 
be crowned Poet Laureate in the Kingdom of God. 
A careful thinker said not long ago: "An honest 
God is the noblest work of man." He startled a few ; 
but a finer, clearer truth, has not lately been uttered. 
And the time will come when men will be noble and 
honorable enough themselves, not to reflect in their 
conceptions any dishonoring attribute of their Maker. 
26* U 



306 THE OLD AND NEW DISPENSATIONS. 

We forget that WC make our own gods, — the gods 
we worship, — if not with our hands, with our dreams 
and speculations and imaginations. The Scribes 
and Pharisees once, we remember, "thanked God 
that they were not like other men." To be sure 
they were not. But the time will come, when it 
will be more tolerable for Chorazin and Bethsaida, 
than for Scribes and Pharisees boasting in that way. 
>try and self-righteousness pulled down widows' 
houses and ground the faces of the poor to the earth ; 
and after they had done it, threw stones at Jesus for 
not tithing anise, mint, and cummin, and for picking 
corn on Sunday. But the time will come, when even 
" publicans and harlots shall enter the Kingdom of 
God M before such accusers. 

These are all ideas which were hinted in that first 
pregfiaht word, u Repent ! " The field of their plant- 
ing, Christ said, is "the world." This field, so planted, 
the Christian dispensation is to train, cultivate and 
develop, until the grand seed shall become the 
grander harvest. These are the sword-truths that 
pierce to the dividing asunder of the Old and the 
New; the outward and the inward; show and sub- 
stance; creeds and character; profession and practice. 
Ye have heard of old time, "they make clean the 
outside of the cup and the platter;" but I say unto 
you, 4< he that maketh clean the inside of the platter 
and the cup, is clean every whit." 

These are the lamps to guide the workmen of 
truth and fidelity from the first hammer sound of 
Repentance! to the last finishing stroke that brings 



AIM 

the u fullness of the stature " of tin- perfect man. Not 
shadows arc we seeking to-day; not old refrain 

we to repeat, that Were music once in ears n<> loi 
quick. We are to take living truth as God in his 
last words has given it; we are to take principles 
that are everlasting; we are to take purities that are 
salt and full of heavenly savor; these we are to take, 
and work them into human life and character. We 
are to be MAN-BUILDERS ; not dream-builders, not 
ceremony-builders, not speculation-builders, simply, 
but character-builders through and through. " Re- 
pent," was the first stroke in the work; " Reform," 
carries it on ; and the intelligence and fidelity of 
spiritual life, able to take up and prosecute the work 
to the crowning finish, constitute the true disciple- 
ship of Christ. 

Repent — Reform — Regenerate — this is the prac- 
tical trinity of Christian religion ; these are the ham- 
mer-strokes of her divine workmanship; the stately 
steps of her triumphant march, as she moves on 
through humanity, conquering and to conquer. 

Shall we keep time? 



THE END. 



RECENT PUBLICATIONS 

CLAXTON, KEMSEN & HAFFELFINGER. 

FOREGLEAMS AND F >] I \h I >F IMMORTALITY. By 

Edmund H. Sears, tamo. New (and,Eleventh l 
tion, revised and greatly enlarged. Extra cloth, $i. ; 
44 The 4 Foregleams of Immortality ' will stand as a love 
iii sacred literature, ami a beautiful inspiration of pare devotional 

feeling. . . . The best test Of merit of a book is when W< 

have been made better by reading it; ami while the one now I 

lens the field of intellectual vision, and makes solid and sub- 
stantial the bridge from time to eternity, it quickens the conscience in 

QSe of duty, and softens the heart with a tender and in- 
tial love." — Christian Inquh 

44 Dr. Sears has done a valuable service to reflecting minds in the 
preparation of this volume. . . . Nowhere i^ the argument for bu- 
lky more clearly set forth ; now here are the Scripture facts, 
which testify to and affirm it, marshalled in closer array, or arranged 
with more logical consistency. The clear and beautiful .style of the 
author adds new power to the lesson he has sought to teach, and gives 
added brightness to the page on which it is written." — Boston I 
img Transcript, 

" The other productions of Mr. Sears have been marked by the 
loftiest moral beauty, in the purest and most elegant diction; but 
this is his chef-d' ' uiuvre m many respects. . . . We know no religious 
work of the age adapted to make a deeper, more practical, and more 
gladdening impression on thoughtful and lofty minds." — Christian 
Register* 

" Few books have pleased me so much as ' Foregleams of Immor- 
tality.' It is full of beauty and truth. The writer is wise from Swe- 
denborg, and has his own gifts besides. I can scarcely conceive of 
his writings not impressing many, and deeply. I have lent the book 
and recommended it in England, where the husks of the old theology 
interfere much with development and growth. Certainly it is a most 
beautiful and pungent book." — Mrs. Blizabeth Barrett Browning, in 
a letter to an Atnerican friend. 

"There is much in the details of the volume which is instructive, 
and especially as regards the reality and some of the features of the 
intermediate state. . . . The concluding part of the book is entirely 
new, being on the ■ Symphony of Religions,' and sets forth the im- 
perfect but yet valuable testimony of the various heathen religions to 
the grand truth of Immortality." — Chicago Advance. 

"A very interesting volume. The author has herein discussed 
the pregnant theme of Immortality with signal ability, clothii. 
thoughts in language so chaste and elegant, and illustrating his ideas 
by such a profusion of appropriate imagery, that the book has all the 
fascination of a beautiful poem." — The Swedenborgian* 

1 



PUBLICATIONS OF CLAXTON, REM3EN & HAFFELFINGER, 



HON, By Edmund H. Scars. New Edition, 
revised and enlarged. i2mo. Extra cloth, $1.25. 
M A fresh vivid presentation of an important theme — all the more 

valuable as the utterance of one who has thought deeply and felt pro- 
foundly about it. The reader will find in these pages no dry discus- 
subject, but familiar truth presented with beauty 
of diction in B singularly felicitous and impressive manner, and pos- 
sessin ination which will win his attention from the beginning 

of the hook to its close. • . . The three volumes (< Regeneration, 1 

. and 'The Heart of Christ,' ) together are a valuable 

contribution to religious and th< I Literature, and one which any 

man mighl id to have made. As now published, they would 

form most acceptable additions to the library of any Sunday-School, 
parish, or clergyman." — Boston Evening Transcript. 

" M ' volume on ' Regeneration ' is one of the profoundest 

and most exhaustive treatises on that subject, extant. The way in 

which he unfolds the laws of our inner life in the orderly process of 
spiritual development, will be a revelation to most of those who read 
it for the first time." — Arthur s Home Magazine 

'• A work full of the deepest and most nourishing spiritual truths — 
truths never more needed than they are at the present day and hour. 
Among devotional works it stands in the front rank; and alike in the 
sweetness of its spirit and the beauty of its language, it commends 

. sincere Christian. ... It is a good book to have by 

one. Its frequent perusal and study can hardly fail to enrich the 
spiritual life and lead to a firmer faith ami a larger charity." — The 
Christian A\ 

■• V • r, we venture . 1ms the subject of regeneration been 

1 in a manner at once so profound, philosophic, exhaustive, 
1, and scriptural, as in this charming volume." — /A 
i Magazine* 



Tin; Fourth Gospel, the Heart of Christ. By Ed- 
mund H. Sc.us. 121110. pp. 551. Extra cloth, £2.50. 

ic Fourth Gospel, the Heart of Christ, is a book of extraordi- 

rich and fresh contribution ro the literature of 

touching the life of our Lord. It is instructive ami SUgges- 

D the highest ranges of Christian thought and feeling." — The 

I 

•• No book of recent American th i likely to win more notice 

thoughtful readers than this handsome volume by Edmund II. 
- The Church an,/ State. 

*• 1 he book of Dr. Edmund 11 . entitled 'The Heart (^ 

I. we b. exert a powerful influence upon 

>f thinking men in all branches of the Church." — New 

>:t. 

'J 



PUBLICATIONS OF CLAXTON, RF.MSF.N & HAFFHI.FINQER. 



jontj d to Henry \^ 

Beecher. ByB. F.Barrett, tamo. Exti . ji.oo. 

CON 11 I. Mr. B 

AMIM I'. !1. SWI D] i mm -AND IT. III. 

Hi- Philosophy of Spib s, [V. Vindication or ms Ci mm 

— by adducing what 1 ath and ' n; the 
Form of Man's Spirit; Light and Heat in Heaven; tl 

Heaven; S i in H< iven; Time and Space in Heaven; Houses 

in Heaven; Temples and Worship in i nmentS in 

•m ; .1 Heaven for Gentiles; Children in H 
1 in Heaven; Marriages in II Employments in H 

the Happiness en; the Lite that leads to Heaven; the Nature 

oi Hell; the tire of Hell — what it is; Man'- I 
V. Need and Ti i op his Disclosures. yi. Collai 

IMONY. 

u A small volume with a great deal in it." — Tlie Co' 

'-We believe these Letters will produce a favorable imprei 

upon the candid reader. There IS [in them] a vigor and terseness 
welome in these day- of Long-drawn-out and tedious attempts 
at generalization." — Boston Xczo Church Ma 

he literature of Swedenborgianism is growing every year; and 
what is noticeable about it is it- good literary form, it- earnest spirit, 
and the vigor and culture that it shows. . . . Any one fond of such 
speculation will read this lively little book with interest ; for the pres- 
entation of the subject is animated and earnest." — New Haven 
Palladium. 

"No one of the many works in the same vein — some of which 
that are singularly able and lucid have been prepared by Mr. Barrett 

— have more earnestness, practically applied, than this." — J'hila- 
delphia North American. 

"A grand and impressive statement of the New Church doctrine 
of the Future Life, eminently calculated to enlighten and interest 
the general reader." — A'evu Church Independent. 



Letters on the Divine Trinity, addressed to Henry 
Ward Beecher. By B. F. Barrett. New and en- 
larged edition, nmo. Extra cloth, Ji.oo. 

A trenchant but friendly criticism of Mr. Beecher's view of the 
Trinity, as stated in his sermon on " Understanding and pre- 

senting with great clearness and force the New Doctrine on this 
ject, together with the Scriptural and rational evidence in its support 



PUBLICATIONS OF CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGES. 



The New View oi Hell; Showing its Nature, Where* 

aboutS, Duration, and How to Escape it. By B. F. 
Barrett 121110. Extra cloth, $1.00. 

: s.— I. The M w Dispensation. II. The Old Doc- 
Hiii.. in. TheNewView. i\'. The Scripture Ax- 

GUMENT — Siib'i, Hi !IN\.\, AND THE L V, 

III I i ILL WHO GO THERE, VI. THK I)URA- 

tion of Hi i. l. vn. Some Evidence of its Duration — Philo- 

sophi Scriptural. VIII. Why cannot the Ruling 

d after Death? IX. Displays of the Divine 

snity in Hell. X. [s Hell to undergo any Change? If 

so, ofwhai Nature? XL The Devil and Satan. XII. Prac- 

ke Question. XIII. How to Escape Hell. 

'• A succinct and intelligible statement of Swedenborg's doctrine 
of retribution. It contains . . . much that is profoundly true, and 
much that is exceedingly suggestive." — New York IndepciiJoit. 

" A really valuable contribution to the world's stock of religious 
ideas. . . . The book, taken as a whole, is of great interest, and we 
commend it to our readers as worthy of attentive perusal." — Ncio 
;• Sun. 

* There is not a Christian man or woman in the world, who would 
C benefited by the reading of this book." — Westfield A 
' r. 

I ■ The New View of Hell ' is put forth one of the most striking 
and pregnant of Swedenborg's thoughts — that, too, whose influence 
on orthodoxy has been most observable — his conception of Hell as 
a state, not a place, and as such, the chosen home of all who go 
there." — New York : Mail. 

u The author illustrates and enforces the main idea of his volume 
with great fulness of detail and frequent beauty of expression. His 
discussion is conducted with an admirable sweetness of spirit, unusual 
in theological controversy." — New York Tribune, 



ON the New Dispensation, signified by the 
New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. By B. F. Barrett. 
i 2ino. Extra cloth, $1.15. 

Tin volume is to unfold and elucidate the leading 

nes taught by Kmanuel Swedenborg. And it is considered one 

>f th< tries for this pur, r published. 'I'he Londm ln- 

nal Rep admirable work for making one 

I with the doe!' the N\\v Church [as taught by 

g J." 

1 



* . ; 



■ 




I 




■ ■ 






■ 

■ 



■ • 







DeacAhed using the Bookkeeper 
Neu.ral.zing agent: Magnesium oST^' 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

PreservationTechnoloqies 

1 ' > Thomson Park Drivo 
Cranberry Township, pa 16068 



- 

H 




*«4 

■ 



■M 



*-'■-','.:. '.•■.>'■. .:•''■ .:^.A)-: 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



747 6 






